(Posted in “Summer blockbusters: superhero, supermodel” and “Raj, Big
Bang Theory”)
It’s tragic when a hate affair ends. Like every red-blooded American
boy, I took dad to see Sex and the City 2 for Father’s Day (his
choice, my hand to god). As an epicure of bad film, I went expecting
the kind of jaw-dropping commodity delirium and self-executing
celebrity narcissism that reassures my faith that you’ve never seen it
all (and I knew I hadn’t seen it with Sex and the City 1 --
http://blog.comiccritique.com/?p=7 -- ’cuz the numbers keep going up).
And at the outset, it was promising: a lot more of the trademark
glam-schizophrenia shots with minor-celeb Carrie and her wholly
unfamous friends marching around like the planet is their runway;
lotta delusional Busby Dior affluence; and an opening setpiece at two
other friends’ gay wedding where the entertainment is Liza Minnelli
doing a ghastly cover of “Put a Ring on It” (whatever the price of the
real Beyonce’s dignity is, apparently the filmmakers did not meet
it). Then the shock set in…it really wasn’t all that bad.
Yes, for every one or two brilliant fellatio jokes and wry insights of
social-fringe satire there’s still seven lame juvenile puns and jags
of desperate writers’-room tragic hipness. And yes, when the girls
decamp to Abu Dhabi for a calgon-take-me-away vacay there’s a
nightclub-karaoke rendition of “I Am Woman” by the four postmodern
Barbies in the cradle of purdah that boogied right past the
post-murder frolic in teenpop heaven from Lovely Bones and the
jazz-dance alien-possession scene in Spider-Man 3 on my personal list
of the all-time most tasteless musical showstoppers. And okay,
there’s a decidedly mixed goody-bag of collector cameos, from Liza
(appalling) to Tim Gunn (hilarious) to Miley Cyrus (also appalling,
but it sets up the Tim Gunn one) to Penelope Cruz (ah, Penelope…um,
what were we talking about?).
But just as even Sarah Jessica herself has confided to interviewers
that she’s running an internal narrative in which the four fairytale
friends are a figment of Carrie’s imagination, the crumbling economy
has caused cracks to form in the franchise’s rich-and-famous sim.
There are nods to real-life tough times throughout, including several
unsentimentalized encounters with workin’ serfs of the global
plantation economy in the midst of the mega-resort locale. There’s a
great scene where Miranda and Charlotte have to get each other drunk
to admit what a crock idealized motherhood is (though I still saw it
as a missed opportunity for an arbitrary Ayelet Waldman cameo). And
karaoke counter-insurgency notwithstanding, there’s a lot of
relatively sure-footed culture-clash humor that sends a notably
good-natured post-9/11 message that the West and Middle East are gonna
have to effin’ get used to each other.
At least one internet wag has reviewed this as a horror movie, and I
admit that the major plotline of a crazed Samantha popping a portable
pharmacy of quack menopause remedies put me in mind of a reverse Larry
Talbot trying to turn back into the Wolfman. But the gag is genuinely
and dependably funny, damn them. It’s just one of many things I can’t
forgive the franchise for. ’Cuz this inexorable sequel reminds me that
those numbers go in one direction, and not only are none of us
getting younger, but there’s not necessarily any point past which we
can escape growing up.
