Review: Sex and the City 2

When you see hundreds of women lined up at the box office this weekend in flashy dresses slightly loopy from too many cocktails, trust me, they're not in line to see The Prince of Persia.

This weekend marks the opening of Sex and the City 2, the sequel to the massive financial and cultural event that was Sex and the City the movie.  It's been two years, the girls are back, and it is a delight to have them.  

To review this film is to understand what it's like to view it in theaters, for the moment the lights in the theater get dim and that theme song starts and hundreds of girls with their best friends, wearing their best dresses start to applaud and laugh excitedly it becomes abundantly clear that this movie could F quality and it truly wouldn't matter .  I went on Wednesday night and a little past midnight these hundreds of girls and I knew that we will be here until a little before 3am but we were there in droves anyway for one reason and one reason only: the chance to hang out with all of our collective best friends of 6 seasons and now 2 movies: Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, and Miranda.

The movie itself?  Borderline ridiculous, always fabulous.

Major spoilers ahead:

The movie opens like a postcard, with New York City in its shining glory with Alicia Keys belting out her hook from "Empire State of Mind".  Carrie walks out of her fabulous apartment in her fabulous designer dress wearing fabulous designer sunglasses and with a 1000 watt smile hails a cab.  Carrie Bradshaw has arrived, and the audience ate it up with applause. 

Much has been said already of how Sex and the City 2 is style over story and this is true. I can sum up the plot in one sentence and a comma slice, Charlotte's kids are driving her crazy, Miranda quits her job, Samantha is trying to reverse menopause via Suzanne Summers, Carrie is adjusting to when married life becomes more comfortable than sparkly, and they end up in the Middle East for over an hour of the movie.      

Sure this movie has the emotional drama of stale cotton candy, but that's not really the point.  The plot is not why we chuck over our $7 student discounted tickets.  Sex and the City the series was always about 3 things: friendship, sex, and the pursuit of a glamorous life with the hottest fashions, careers, and men the girls could get their hands on.  Now that they've finally had their happily ever afters why not enjoy a little decadence?

Decadence may be an understatement.

The women routinely walk around their expensive apartment in designer suits and ballgowns.  The newest Blackberry and plunging necklines are ever present as are the hired help.  Can we relate to these women anymore?  Probably not their style.  But underneath their vintage skirts and pumps the girls are facing a very relateable topic (and the heart of the movie): what happens after "I do".

Go to Abu Dhabi, apparently.  The majority of the movie is spent in the lavish Middle East where the women discuss their minor troubles of being bored by the married life or the annoyance of their children running around.  Of course, they discuss these troubles while drinking cosmos and having private butlers and wearing more beautiful colors than a shattered kaleidoscope.  Oh and there's that moment of cheating with ex-flame Aiden but that too is resolved quickly and with a bigger diamond than Kobe gave his wife and Tiger still owes his.  Yes, the movie is too long.  Yes, some of it gratuitous.  But it's fun.  And the wit that was lost in the first movie is back in roaring form.  My particular favorite: [as Samantha is going to take a handful of pills] Charlotte:  How are you gonna swallow those?

Samantha: Have we met?

And so it ends with Carrie and Big watching old movies together, Miranda has a better job and more time with her family, Charlotte has more patience with her children, and Samantha fucks a guy on top of a jeep on a beach.  All is well in the world of Sex and the City.  But once again, it's not the ending of the movie that's so important.

What Sex and the City 2 means is the pre-gaming.  Look around town and you might see restaurants hosting special Sex and the City cocktail and dinner hour for the women getting together before the movie.  It's the time spent in the movie with the women gasping and hollaring "Oh hell" in excitement (like the lady two rows back from me).  And it's the post-game, when everyone from the women walking out of the theater to my optometrist the next morning gabbing about what happen.

And in my friend group it was all these three things.  We pre-gamed making calzones and watching old episodes while two of them dashed to the theater to buy tickets early.  It was the 7 of us sitting in the theater nodding to each other as Miranda showed up in a sleek olive dress after her flashback, or when Carrie left her passport in the market because she was distracted buying cute shoes, or when Samantha was waving around her condoms yelling "I HAVE SEX!  SEEEX!" among the conservative Middle Eastern onlookers.  And it was the beautiful post-game when we walked down the street imagining that our flip-flops were Manolo Blahnixs, that our purses were Gucci, not Target, and that familiar question begins: who are you?  Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, or Miranda?  Only after the hyperbole of elegance in the movie that question becomes: Who do you want to be?  Carrie, Charlotte, Samantha, or Miranda?  And that happy and inevitably hilarious discussion is worth every penny of Sex and the City 2.