When you go to catch SATC2, bring a book to keep you busy...

Well it’s official: the Sex and The City franchise has run its course. The one-time hit HBO series with record-breaking ratings that defined style for thirty-somethings for a decade has run out of story to tell.

Leading up to the Sex and the City 2 screening I read the initial reactions to the movie, calling it “clothes porn” and a “two and a half hour commercial,” but dismissed such criticisms with the understanding and acceptance that this is the nature of SATC and part of the reason that it has grown to such acclaim.

Unfortunately, dismiss I cannot. After the screening, the only impression left on me is that my wardrobe needs a makeover and my credit card is lucky the mall was closed when I got out.

The overwhelming theme, focus and purpose of the sequel (and likely last) SATC film is the clothes. Every scene, and seemingly every sentence, cuing a wardrobe change to reveal an outfit more outrageous, extravagant, and in some cases, more ridiculous than the previous (peaking in one scene when the foursome come climbing over a sand dune dressed as what looks like a rodeo clown, a cowgirl, a princess and a colourblind fortune teller).

To Warner Brothers’ credit, wardrobe is key to character identification and development and has been throughout this series. But clothes cannot carry a film. Typically audiences will expect more than what they would get sitting and watching the summer/ fall collections at fashion week. With this film, they won’t get that.

The "plot" follows a logical and predictable progression throughout the movie just barely weaving the scenes together. Without introducing new characters, there is only so much history and only so many men for the writers to revisit. I won’t spoil, but any SATC fan can predict the return of a special someone whose ends were never firmly tied.

One specific disappointment was the music. The opening credits displayed over the NYC cityscape were nicely accompanied by Alicia Keys and Jay Z’s oh-so-hot-right-now Empire State of Mind, but the soundtrack dwindled from there.

Although this whole account sounds harsh, I am not upset, and to be honest, I don’t think I am disappointed. Was there really any story left to tell? Did you have any outstanding questions? Perhaps the fault lies in the hands of the original movie for having left no rock unturned.

This sequel simply plays out the lives we expected these characters to be living based on where we left them and they left us. They just happen to be doing that in the very finest and most expensive wardrobe of any film to date.

Conclusion:
Put on some heels, grab some girlfriends and make sure you make a pit stop on the way in.

Then watch it for the clothes and the clothes alone and stick to Suzanne Somers for the tangible life lessons.*


* You’ll get it once you see it. ;)


This review is also posted on thesceneinto