Sex and the City 2 review

Two years after the first Sex and the City movie, based on the popular television series, comes the creatively titled Sex and the City 2: a film just as unnecessary as the first. While it does provide the legions of Jimmy Choo-wearing fans with everything they could want - fashion, shopping, Samantha sex jokes and more fashion - it does little to add to the territory explored in the TV series.

The sequel picks up two years after the first film, with the women struggling to deal with the various `stresses' in their lives. Charlotte (Kristin Davis), despite the help of a full-time nanny, is finding the demands of motherhood challenging, Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is having trouble juggling her job as a lawyer and her responsibilities as a mother, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is terrified she and Mr. Big (Chris Noth) are becoming an old, married couple and Samantha (Kim Cattrall), as the only single member of the group, is struggling to keep her sex drive alive at 52. To escape from their problems the ladies jet-off to Abu Dhabi on a luxury vacation where Carrie runs into a former flame and, in a vaguely offensive plot turn, they find their style and attitudes clash with the Muslim society.

Sex and the City 2 is at least an hour too long and the running time of almost two and a half hours will leave even hardcore followers of the series itching for the end credits. We really didn't need to see every room of their hotel suite, every furniture item in their NYC homes or the plethora of slo-mo shots of outfit after outfit. Yes, I get it, a large part of it is about the clothes, but there was always a balance of substance and style in the TV series. Some audiences might also find it hard to relate to four, upper-class white women whose greatest problems are wearing the same ridiculously overpriced dress as Miley Cyrus to a premiere or the possibility of having to fly coach. The horror! Did I mention it's girly? So sickeningly girly I'm at the point where if I hear the word `sparkle' or another freakin wind-chime effect when something `magical' happens, I'm going to put Sarah Jessica Parker down like the Afghan dog she so closely resembles (exhibit A).

There was at least some point to the first film as it existed to tie up all the loose ends of the series and it did have some groundbreaking sex scenes shown from a female perspective (for once). But the franchise has become like the female equivalent of the James Bond series: it's all about the clothes, the glamour, the tongue-in-cheek named characters, the sex and the same staple of fans will trot along to see it regardless.

Instead of progressing into the new aspects of their lives, the main characters have become the Barbie dolls of gay men as they try to revive the glory days when they were much younger, much sassier and much more interesting. But unfortunately these women stopped representing Sex and the City about six years ago. Now they are more like Menopause in the Desert.

Sex and the City 2 opens in cinemas on Thursday, but in the meantime Filmdrunk (my favourite website in all the land) pointed me to this delicious and far superior review of the film here. Check it out or perish.