The party's over
"Sex and the City 2" is a ghastly mess, a stake in the heart of the great TV series that ran from 1998 to 2004. This second "SATC" movie (I liked the first one) is misconceived on every level. Consider:
1. After opening with the usual helicopter footage of New York skyscrapers (Look, there's the Chrysler Building!), this very long picture decamps for what seems like half an hour to a gay wedding in Connecticut, complete with glittery male choir and a Liza Minnelli (!) dance number, which nearly sinks the film on its own. It then decamps even farther to Abu Dhabi, of all places, where there's no sex and, for the story's purposes, no city either. This is where most of the movie takes place.
2. Whereas the old TV series pioneered a mature new female candor about sex and relationships, this movie gives ample screen time to a busty young nanny who's shown cavorting with kids in a park while her breasts leap around inside her blouse with a life of their own. Later we see her chest accidentally sprayed with water, which turns that scene into a one-girl wet T-shirt contest.
3. To balance things out, we also meet a group of young hunks at a swimming pool and are given close-up crotch shots of their bulging Speedos. Later there's a hunky Danish architect and a lingering close-up ofhis crotch in all of its protruding tumescence. This character has naturally caught the eye of our gal Samantha (Kim Cattrall), still ravenously randy at the age of 52. She asks his name. It's Richard Spirtz. She decides to just call him Dick.
4. The writing, which was one of the glories of the TV series, sharp and pungent, is here abysmally juvenile. Samantha, upon learning that a World Cup soccer team has arrived on the scene: "Did they bring their balls?" And later, spotting a hot guy in the desert: "Lawrence of my labia!" At one point someone actually says, "Abu Dhabi do!"
