Sex and the City 2 
 
 'Sex and the City 2' review: Ladies at premiere may dazzle, but movie offers sloppy seconds 
 
 Blankenhorn/AP Like Champagne left out overnight, Samantha, Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte have lost their sparkle in 'Sex and the City 2'. WATCH VIDEO of the premiere below. 
 
 It's been two years since the first "Sex and the City" movie - and this shtick is getting old. 
 
 Though the sequel is a welcome return of the four women we know and love, it's tough not to acknowledge that if we were all friends in real life, at this point we'd probably stop taking their calls. 
 
 The city - long called the franchise's "fifth character" - takes a backseat this time. NYC is, in fact, the setting for much discontent: Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is fretting that Big (Chris Noth) wants to snuggle on their expensive couch instead of hitting the town. 
 
 Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) has a boss from hell who gives her the hand every time she speaks. Samantha (Kim 
 
 Cattrall) is desperately trying to stave off menopause, and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is going crazy from the sound of her kids' squawking, though, in true form, she'd never admit it. 
 
 So they escape to Abu Dhabi (stand-in: Morocco), at the invitation of a sheik who wants Samantha to rep his hotel and make it seem attractive to Americans. How could it not be? It's stunning, and the girls each get their own Maybach. 
 
 But like the journey in "The Wizard of Oz" (the imagery - from Carrie's gold-sequined Louboutin pumps to her exclaiming "We're not in Kansas anymore!" - is vivid), things aren't as la-dee-dah as they first seem. 
 
 As if she can't help it, Carrie kicks up some trouble for herself after finding Aidan (John Corbett), now a married dad of two, in a souk. She's dressed as Glinda the Good Witch in a poufy skirt and "J'adore Dior" T-shirt, and she looks like a maniac. But the drama that ensues is so been-there, done-that, you wonder if she has an emotional imbalance that keeps her perpetually dissatisfied with life. 
 
 Things fare better for Charlotte and Miranda, who bond over motherhood in the way most do - through cocktails. 
 
 And it's not surprising that Samantha eventually creates a culture clash (Oh, hadn't you heard? Abu Dhabi doesn't take kindly to public displays of affection.) that leads to one of the dumbest conflict resolutions ever caught on film. 
 
 The girls have hot bods, the clothes and scenery are sublimely sparkly and the zippy zingers fly. A gay wedding and karaoke round out the lady catnip. 
 
 It's over the top, and over the rainbow. But just like Carrie's worries about the "sparkle" leaving her marriage, this movie is like once-brilliant Champagne, carelessly left out overnight. And gone flat. 
 
 adiluna@nydailynews.com ||||| The only thing memorable about Sex and the City 2 is the number two part, which describes it totally, if you get my drift. Everything else in this deadly, brainless exercise in pointless tedium is dedicated to the screeching audacity of delusional self-importance that convinces these people the whole world is waiting desperately to watch two hours and 25 minutes of platform heels, fake orgasms and preposterous clothes. It is to movies what fried dough is to nutrition. 
 
 It has been two years since their last chick flick and in the interim, Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have turned from Cosmo girls who munch into cougar ladies who lunch. They still devote their lives to the credo that no crisis is ever so great that it can’t be solved by a new pair of Manolo Blahniks, but now there’s a difference. No longer waiting for orgasms, they’re waiting for menopause, and in all four cases, they’ve found it. No film has ever contained so many sloppy hairdos soaking wet from hot flashes. Tired of being called the heterosexual equivalent of Armistead Maupin’s gay West Coast lampoon Tales of the City in the San Francisco Chronicle, this installment opens with Carrie in a man’s tuxedo, playing the best man at a gay wedding almost as vulgar as the homophobic one-liners about the minister, played by-are you ready?-Liza Minnelli, who parodies herself by telling the congregation, “Marriage is serious … or so they tell me,” before blasting off with Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” 
 
 Carrie, a neurotic Black Belt shopper who lives for designer labels, and an occasional columnist who writes about being fabulous and single, has been married two years to Mr. Big (Chris Noth), who once dumped her at the altar. (Sarah Jessica Parker looks better after her face mole was surgically removed, so why does her hair look like 20 pounds of mattress stuffing?) Uptight, Waspy-turned-Jewess Charlotte (Kristin Davis) brings her bald Jewish husband, her two babies and a nanny without a bra. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is back with nice-guy bartender Steve (David Eigenberg), but still too preoccupied as a lawyer to pay much attention to her home life (although rarely seen so much as filing a brief). Samantha (Kim Cattrall), still the group slut who has slept with every eligible man in Manhattan and half of Brooklyn without learning anything about real life in the Porthault sheets, brings a new face that looks like some of the sutures are still in it and her usual stinging one-liners. (“It’s a gay wedding-what’s one more bitch with an attitude?”) These are the jokes, and since the four women dress like drag queens, it’s not always easy to tell the difference. 
 
 Substituting for a plot, the four bimbos brew trouble in paradise. Allergic to the kitchen, Carrie calls herself “more Coco Chanel than coq au vin” and wants to go out on the town every night, while Big pleads for osso buco at home and watching old black-and-white classics in bed like It Happened One Night. (The only sane person in the entire film, if you ask me.) Smith (Jason Lewis), the old squeeze Samantha turned into a Hollywood star by smearing sushi on her V-word, comes to town for his new movie premiere and puts a temporary smile on her face, although it sags again when Miley Cyrus shows up on the red carpet wearing the same dress. (Penélope Cruz also makes a cameo appearance as the senior VP of the Bank of Madrid. Who could make this stuff up?) You keep asking yourself, “Where is this going?” And the only answer you come up with is “Every place it’s already been before.” In the 2008 chapter, Carrie had a nervous breakdown in a Vivienne Westwood wedding gown that looked like a cloud of lemon meringue pie on the front steps of the New York Public Library, and her soulmates whisked her off to Mexico for mariachis, margaritas and a dose of Montezuma’s Revenge for Charlotte, who pooped in her lingerie. This time, after Mr. Big suggests two days a week off from marriage, they all drag Carrie to Abu Dhabi (played by Morocco), where more than an hour is wasted on camel rides, karaoke numbers and insulting Middle East jokes like “Abu Dhabi Doo,” “Bedouin, Bath and Beyond” and “Lawrence of My Labia.” A mild touch of feminism makes a brief appearance when a group of women covered in black confess they’ve been inspired by a forbidden book by their idol … Suzanne Somers!! Samantha gets arrested for nudity and kissing in public; Carrie loses her passport in the casbah; and they almost miss their return flight, which elicits from Samantha a mournful shriek: “I can’t be in menopause and coach!” 
 
 Dragging its deplorable carcass into infinity, Sex and the City 2 is so bad you can’t even watch the trailer. Almost everyone who has ever appeared on the TV series reappears to mutter two or three lines that contribute nothing to the film they’re in. The women-too old now to pout, whine and babble about their wet dreams, affluent and successful for reasons that are never clear-are all vain, narcissistic, selfish, superficial and really rather stupid. The actors work hard to perform triage, but they’ve been playing these roles so long they’ve grown moss. The insipid screenplay and catatonic direction seem chloroformed. Both are by Michael Patrick King. He’s an expert at product placement and marketing (the end credits list hundreds of free plugs for everything from limousines to breakfast cereal), but I seriously doubt if he could direct Jeeps in the middle of the Mojave desert. 
 
 When all this greed pays off with millions in box office receipts, the hacks responsible for Sex and the City 2 will say, “I told you so.” But that won’t make the movie any better. You can’t make caviar out of jujubes. 
 
 rreed@observer.com 
 
 Sex and the City 2 
 
 Running time 146 minutes 
 
 Written and directed by Michael Patrick King 
 
 Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Chris Noth 
 
 
 
 1 Eyeball out of 4 
 
 
 
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 Sex and the City 2 -- Film Review 
 
 "Sex and the City 2" 
 
 Bottom Line: Overlong sequel scores some choice, politically incorrect laughs. 
 
 Because the first "Sex and the City" movie turned out to be a boxoffice bonanza two years ago, there are a lot of women panting for the sequel, already planning their wardrobe for a girls' night out.So even if "Sex and the City 2" consisted of nothing but a two-and-a-half hour fashion show, it would draw crowds. But it also has the returning cast members in fine comic form, and it has more cutting-edge humor than the first movie. Critics will carp about the platitudes in the script and about the longueurs in the nearly 2 1/2-hour opus, but for the core audience, there will be no complaints about too much of a good thing. This picture is going to be a smash.Some of us who enjoyed the outrageous antics showcased in the HBO series created by Darren Star and executed in later years by Michael Patrick King (the writer-director of both films) found the first movie disappointingly bland. Instead of the bracing emphasis on sex, the focus shifted to less scintillating folderol about marriage. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) was jilted at the altar by her true love, Mr. Big (Chris Noth), but snared him in the end. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) also faced a crisis in her marriage but ended up in a clinch with hubby Steve (David Eigenberg). The new movie begins two years later at a wedding -- a gay wedding (in Connecticut). But though the two grooms are pledging their devotion, the gals are learning that marital bliss is more elusive than the first movie implied.Carrie and Big find themselves at odds over an issue that bedevils many couples: She loves to go out on the town, and he turns out to be a closet TV addict who wants to do nothing more than curl up on the couch watching old movies. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) has achieved her dream life with two children, but the tots turn out to be maddening rather than adorable. Only Samantha (the consistently irresistible Kim Cattrall) remains defiantly single, waging her own personal war against menopause.These wan domestic squabbles are merely prelude to the movie's major plot development. Samantha is approached by an Arab sheik to devise a PR campaign for his business enterprises, and he offers to fly her and her three gal pals on an all-expenses-paid luxury vacation to Abu Dhabi. (These scenes were filmed in Morocco.) Even in an escapist fantasy, the spectacle of women sinking into this billionaire's paradise at a time of widespread economic hardship initially seems creepy and off-putting. Soon, however, their Arab sojourn takes unexpected turns. First of all, Carrie encounters her old flame, Aidan (John Corbett), at the spice market, but even more importantly, she and her friends run up against the puritanical and misogynistic culture of the Middle East. The rather scathing portrayal of Muslim society no doubt will stir controversy, especially in a frothy summer entertainment, but there's something bracing about the film's saucy political incorrectness. Or is it politically correct? "SATC 2" is at once proudly feminist and blatantly anti-Muslim, which means that it might confound liberal viewers.Indicative of the film's contradictory stance is a scene in which the ladies perform a karaoke version of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" in an Abu Dhabi nightclub. An equally outrageous moment comes when the interlopers are rescued by a bunch of Muslim women who strip off their black robes to reveal the stylish Western outfits they are concealing beneath their discreet garb. These endearingly loopy scenes exhibit the tasteless humor that enlivened the TV series on its best nights.King's script isn't always well-balanced. Carrie's minor marital problems are given way too much attention, whereas the intriguing dilemmas of Miranda and Charlotte are downplayed. Nixon and Davis do, however, share one marvelous scene in which they vent their dissatisfactions with motherhood. It also is a pleasure to see Cattrall flaunt her sexual imperatives in front of her Arab hosts. Noth and Corbett are so appealing that we can sympathize with Carrie's romantic confusion. Liza Minnelli, Miley Cyrus and Penelope Cruz show up for amusing cameos.Technical credits are first-rate. Cinematographer John Thomas and production designer Jeremy Conway make the most of the exotic locations. Costume designer Patricia Field's outlandish creations will send many viewers to hog heaven. But it's hard to know what King and editor Michael Berenbaum were smoking when they let the film drag on at least 40 minutes too long. Even with its excesses, Carrie and company's excellent Arabian adventure will leave viewers thinking and arguing as well as swooning over the digs and the rags. ||||| Previous installments of "Sex and the City" have settled the ancient question of what women want—love, sex and designer clothes, though not necessarily in that order. Now "Sex and the City 2" reveals what Islamic women want. Call this sequel callow, garish, ghastly, grisly or grotesque—and it is all of those things, plus borderline-interminable at 146 minutes. During a visit to Abu Dhabi, though, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte discover that the chadors worn by their Muslim sisters conceal—you guessed it—the glories of this year's fashion collection. So much for a clash of civilizations. 
 
 In this sequel to "Sex and the City," Carrie Bradshaw and the gang travel to Abu Dhabi. 
 
 This dismal comedy provokes a crash of expectations, however modest they may have been after the first theatrical version of the HBO series. It's a silly symphony of big, anxious smiles and big, nervous laughs. (In a film for the cognitively challenged, everything but the tacky wardrobe is several sizes too big.) It's a cinematic dairy farm, milking every close-up and every gag, whether about menopause (the four friends are forever young only in reruns) or about a glamorous Irish nanny's bouncy breasts. It's an almost avant-garde adventure in aimlessness. Apart from an elaborately cloying gay wedding, nothing happens until somewhere near the half-hour mark, when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her beloved Mr. Big (Chris Noth) come up against a certifiable conflict—he wants to stay home and she doesn't. That's when "Sex and the City 2" also becomes a triumph of product placement, the product being Abu Dhabi (though what we see is actually Morocco). "Dubai is over," a dubious sheik declares. "Abu Dhabi is the future." 
 
 Enlarge Image Close New Line Productions From left, Cynthia Nixon, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall and Kristin Davis in 'Sex and the City 2.' 
 
 Maybe so, but it looks like the past—specifically, a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road movie with Kim Cattrall's Samantha as a nymphomaniacal (and, she never lets us forget, menopausal) stand-in for Dorothy Lamour. Samantha manages to scandalize her Muslim hosts with carnality in public places, while Carrie has a flirtation with having a flirtation after an encounter with an old flame that plays—and looks—like a potboiler produced by Ross Hunter. The production as a whole, which was perpetrated, as before, by Michael Patrick King, turns on a strategy of avoidance. Real feelings lurk just below the surface—Samantha's terror of growing old, Carrie's fear of eventual tedium in a childless marriage. Yet the surface is where the movie stays, like an old submarine with dead batteries. 
 
 'Father of My Children' 
 
 I'm reluctant to tell you too much about "Father of My Children." Surprises abound, and one of the events in its narrative flow left me so stunned that I wished the flow would stop until I could pull myself together. It isn't saying too much, though, to call Mia Hansen-Løve's French-language drama beautiful, profound and, given the gathering tensions of its story, phenomenally full of life. 
 
 The father of the title, Grégoire Canvel, is an idealistic movie producer under siege. (Let me stop my own account long enough to note that this is more than a movie about making movies, even though the details of Grégoire's working life are rendered with precision and delightful verve.) One of his self-styled auteurs is out of control, along with the movie's budget, and someone on the set has recently committed suicide. Grégoire's credit line is frayed to the point of unraveling. He fields cell phone calls like a goalie fending off swarms of free kicks. And his little indie operation is about to be invaded by a small army of Korean filmmakers who'll need logistical support that the office staff can't provide. 
 
 In the midst of this steady-state chaos, Grégoire manages to stay cool, radiate charm and keep his wry sense of humor. He's also wise enough to set aside precious time for his Italian-born wife, Sylvia (Chiara Caselli), and their three lovely daughters, one of whom is on the cusp of young womanhood. Still, watching Grégoire in action starts you wondering how long he can survive, both financially and emotionally, and how much of his devotion to the cause of his independent films is sustained by denial or self-delusion. 
 
 Such questions arise without any prompting from Ms. Hansen-Løve, who writes and directs with flawless finesse, or from the casual virtuoso who plays Grégoire. Louis-Do de Lencquesaing gives a performance of understated brilliance, one that keeps our feelings about his character in constant flux. That's a quietly daring approach to acting. Sometimes we can see Grégoire as the ardent young man he once was. At other times it's easy to imagine the stressed-out ruin he could become. Occasionally both men seem to exist simultaneously. 
 
 The filmmaker's quiet daring suffuses her view of the whole family. Instead of sticking to predictable drama—the sweet-and-sour smell of success—she turns her attention halfway through to the hero's wife and daughters. (I kept hoping we'd see more of their oldest girl, Clémence, who's played exquisitely by Mr. de Lencquesaing's own daughter, Alice, and those hopes were amply rewarded; watch what she does, for example, with a simple scene about deciding which coffee to order in a café.) The film's focus comes to be not only the price Grégoire's loving family pays for his principled obsession, but how they cope with the realization that their life has been built on quicksand. The choice of a closing song is deliciously daring, and the cinematography, by Pascal Auffray, is sharp-eyed and radiant, as befits a movie concerned with the movie business. 
 
 Enlarge Image Close Disney Jake Gyllenhaal and Gemma Arterton in 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.' 
 
 'Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time' 
 
 For those of you—of us—who've been rooting for Jake Gyllenhaal to prevail as a romantic hunk in "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time," the news is pretty good. He may not be another Douglas Fairbanks or Burt Lancaster, but his dashing Dastan drives this action adventure, which was directed by Mike Newell, with a sense of fun that was missing from "Robin Hood," and a winning demeanor that encompasses light irony and poetic melancholy, not to mention an earnest but slightly bizarre English accent. What's more, he finds a princess worthy of him in Gemma Arterton, who comes by her accent honestly. She's as English as, say, Vivien Leigh, on whose Cleopatra her fiery character may have been modeled, and she complements him perfectly in a succession of scorpions-in-a-bottle scenes that have been written, and are performed, with genuine elegance. (The princess, Tamina, goes through almost the whole film in a single, and elegant, white gown.) 
 
 The film looks impressive, thanks to the burnished gold tones of John Seale's cinematography, and to the artful employment of digital technology that yields dreamlike evocations of medieval desert vistas. And there's much to enjoy in the flash and clash of some early battles, as well as the comical counterpoint of an ostrich race staged by a scruffy hustler who calls himself Sheik Amar; he's played with engaging gusto by Alfred Molina. 
 
 Yet "Prince of Persia," a movie born of a video game, is at war with itself, and the bad guys win. They're the ones responsible for the plot, which is a junkyard of Arabian Nights clichés; for the numbing action sequences that feel like identical segments of an endless loop; and for a climax of boundless absurdity. The lesson here is simple: In the digital realm, the bigger the worse. What looks distinctive and believable in short takes and small doses can turn blatantly phony and deadly familiar when the scale is pumped up. "Prince of Persia" pumps itself up to the bursting point, and bursts. 
 
 DVD FOCUS 
 
 'Road to Morocco' (1942) 
 
 The film wasn't shot in Abu Dhabi, but then it wasn't shot in Morocco either. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby are Orville "Turkey" Jackson and Jeff Peters, stowaways who find themselves castaways following a shipwreck off Paramount's version of the Moroccan coast. When Jeff sells Orville into slavery, the slave owner turns out to be a nubile princess played by Dorothy Lamour. As scholarly depictions of Arab culture go, "Road to Morocco" is on a par with "Sex and the City 2." But it's a lot more fun, and won an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. 
 
 'Summer Hours' (2008) 
 
 Mia Hansen-Løve's previous film isn't available in a DVD format that will play on American players. Instead, I've chosen this fine French-language drama by Olivier Assayas because it offers the chance to see Alice de Lencquesaing in another small but important role. She plays the dying matriarch's teenage granddaughter, Sylvie, who remembers her grandma's history of love and grand passion, and may be destined to repeat it. The film is ostensibly about material things, but the filmmaker's concern is what the matriarch's objects of art are really worth—their emotional content rather than their market value. 
 
 'Brokeback Mountain' (2005) 
 
 Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger play American cowboys. Mr. Gyllenhaal's Jack is a mercurial mix of plain, poetic and practical. Mr. Ledger's Ennis is touchingly bleak, and self-contained, except when rages sweep him. Although the two men love each other passionately, they can't live together in the Marlboro Country of the 1960s and '70s, so they try to hide their love behind shaky facades of heterosexual domesticity. Ang Lee directed from a superb adaptation of an Annie Proulx short story by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. With Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams as, respectively, Jack's and Ennis's uncomprehending wives. 
 
 —Joe Morgenstern 
 
 Write to Joe Morgenstern at joe.morgenstern@wsj.com ||||| Red-Carpet Review: 'Sex and the City 2' Premiere 
 
 Email This The 'Sex and the City' ladies are back -- and they're back in a stylish way! 
 
 
 
 The 'Sex and the City 2' premiere was held tonight at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, and the red carpet was bursting with high style. And the four main actresses didn't disappoint their adoring, style-savvy public: each wore a jaw-dropping gown. 
 
 
 
 Sarah Jessica Parker glowed in a one-shouldered neon yellow Valentino gown, which she borrowed from the Valentino Collection, The 'Sex and the City' ladies are back -- and they're back in a stylish way!The 'Sex and the City 2' premiere was held tonight at New York City's Radio City Music Hall, and the red carpet was bursting with high style. And the four main actresses didn't disappoint their adoring, style-savvy public: each wore a jaw-dropping gown.Sarah Jessica Parker glowed in a one-shouldered neon yellow Valentino gown, which she borrowed from the Valentino Collection, USA Today reported. Her long, blonde, wavy hair and muted makeup perfectly complimented the bright gown. 
 
 Cynthia Nixon wore a form-fitting Carolina Herrera black gown with some gorgeous gold beading along the top of the bodice. Paired with a jeweled clutch and stunning earrings, she was in top form.Kristin Davis was very pretty in pink in her Jean Desses for Decades chiffon gown. Strapless and straight to the floor, it fit her personality -- and her character's personality -- perfectly.And Kim Cattrall looked phenomenal in a gold embellished Naeem Khan floor-length gown. The dress hugged her curves and showed off her fabulous-at-fifty figure perfectly.The star-studded event also featured appearances by other cast members, including Chris Noth, John Corbett, Jason Lewis, Willie Garson, Mario Cantone and David Eigenberg. Some other famous faces stopped by, including Jennifer Love Hewitt, Vanessa Williams, Donald Trump and wife Melania, Howard Stern and wife Beth Ostrosky, Liza Minnelli, Amanda Peet, Jerry Seinfeld and wife Jessica and 'Sex and the City' author Candace Bushnell.
– Sex and the City 2 premiered in New York last night, and the early reviews are not good, to say the least. Read on—or, if you’d rather see the red carpet fashions from the premiere, click here. “The only thing memorable about Sex and the City 2 is the number two part, which describes it totally, if you get my drift,” writes Rex Reed in a scathing New York Observer review that goes on to call the movie a “deadly, brainless exercise in pointless tedium” and its characters “vain, narcissistic, selfish, superficial, and really rather stupid.” “The film is an epic eyesore,” declares David Edelstein of New York. Sarah Jessica Parker’s skin looks “leathery,” Cynthia Nixon is “mummified,” and Kim Cattrall looks “like a cross between (late) Mae West and (dead) Bea Arthur.” Carrie is again embroiled in drama, after a run-in with former flame Aidan, in a situation “so been-there, done-that, you wonder if she has an emotional imbalance that keeps her perpetually dissatisfied with life.”writes Amy DiLuna in the New York Daily News. In the Hollywood Reporter, Stephen Farber writes, “There's something bracing about the film's saucy political incorrectness” —but it still goes on “at least 40 minutes too long.”