Managing feisty and frivolous in equal measure, the SATC women return to the big screen in a surprisingly big way, in Sex And The City 2. Intent on bragging, when not teasing the more skeptical in the audience, that fun doesn’t end either after men and marriage or the beginning of middle age and menopause. The Big Apple flamboyant friends ditch their insular Upper East side of town for the Middle East part of the world, and the temptations of daringly uninhibited even if unintentional SATC style culture clash.
Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte (Kristin Davis), and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), along with their co-starring closets full of clothes and designer furniture, collectively take a break from their families on a whim and eagerly go for it, when the still single and proud Samantha (Kim Cattrall) receives an all expense paid offer to travel to Dubai. It seems that one of Sam’s many former lovers, a Hollywood hunk filming in the Sahara, befriended an enormously wealthy sheik, and he’s extended the invite to his sumptuous palace getaway via fantasy creature comforts private jet. Or something like that.
Not that the women are going to succumb to serious homesickness anytime soon. Lawyer Miranda just quit her job after locking horns with an overbearing boss, and is looking forward to down time while reordering her priorities. Meanwhile, Charlotte grabs the opportunity to flee a wailing baby. And novelty junkie Carrie, who just recently got caught with her fly open while in tuxedo drag as best man at a terminally lavish gay wedding, definitely needs time out to brood about the ‘sparkle’ decline in her marriage. In other words, her increasingly stay-at-home spouse Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who’s getting more attached to their couch than to her lately.
Just when it seemed like that SATC perpetually restless posse might get awfully tedious and redundant while sequelized, writer/director Michael Patrick King – of all things a man, works in some magic to widen and deepen their horizons in wonderful new ways. And though their frequently small and silly shared world comes off initially as a tad inappropriate in that war torn part of the world when the war zones appear to matter less than respective erogenous zones, King eventually serves up sobering flourishes, even if on the light side. Including sheik sexism, burka blues, and an acute class awareness that behind every overly lavish lifestyle, are solemn servant sacrifices.
An excellent sexy adventure for the flaky fashionista, and lovesick, when not lusty girlfriends, in which these giggly and outrageously glamorous forever foursome rock. And when they don’t, there’s always shopping as the cure.
Warner Bros
Rated R
3 1/2 stars
