Sux and the City 2

That's not a typo in today's title. I stole it from the New York Post's review of this mess. If you think I'm not being original, wait till you see the film. On second and third thought, maybe you shouldn't.

But, oh, yeah, I did. See "Sex and the City 2." Another sterling example of the lengths I will go to in order to write a funny blog piece. I knew this thing would stink to high heaven and there's no way I can let that go by without a mention here.

I happened to be at the Arclight Cinemas the weekend "Sex and the City 2" opened. I was there to see the testosterone-laden "Iron Man 2." Nevertheless, the real show that night was watching the audiences file in for Carrie & Company. I saw it over and over. Four girls, maybe a token gay guy included, decked out to the nines in their best party dresses and their spikiest heels. Halloween came early and all the tricks were treats with estrogen.

The only problem was that none of these chicks could pull off the look. They were ultimately dateless and shapeless. Totally age and size inappropriate . Wow! Malfunction at the Sausage Factory! The meat's not fitting into the casing! It was as if Project Runaway was filmed at a Jenny Craig weigh-in.

Sad to say that the actresses in the movie couldn't pull it off either, but for entirely different reasons. They have all fallen victim to a common ailment known as television malaise. You see it all the time. Once a TV show gets to its sixth or seventh year, the actors start getting really bored. They're in it at this point for the dough only. So, they stop digging into their characters for subtle nuances. Instead, they go over the acting wall so many times that it's like the guards are asleep at Sing Sing. They overcompensate for their boredom by totally overplaying their parts. The result is endless histrionics.

That, my friends, is "Sex and the City 2." A movie that had no business being made except for the fact that the actresses all probably are having home kitchens remodeled. There is nothing new here and all of it is tragically pointless. They did it for the money and, unfortunately, there are plenty of badly dressed suckers born every minute. Over Memorial Day weekend, the movie cleaned up at the box office. But, so did the latest installment of Shrek and I would argue that those characters are better looking at this point.

Let's face it. These characters stopped being relevant ages ago. Their wardrobe choices are supposed to be hip. On a big screen, it looks like Edith Head has morphed into Bozo the Clown. One outfit is more hideous than the next. If anybody in New York City really does dress like this, I'm glad I moved.

There is the slimmest of plots with this second installment. Somehow and in some inexplicable way, this idiotic quartet winds up in Abu Dhabi, if for nothing else so they can use lines like "Bedouin, Bath, & Beyond" and "Abu Dhabi Doo." If the Mideast hates America now, wait till this shows up on some sheik's Netflix queue. If you think it's absolutely hysterical to walk some bitch in Jimmy Choo pumps walk across the desert, get your popcorn now with some extra butter. From the size of some of the cows I saw at my screening, they already did.

The writers concoct some flimsy reasons for the girls to be suffering through some post-30s angst, hilarious because the cast is all over 40. Carrie, in particular, is mad that now-hubby Mr. Big wants a flat screen TV in his bedroom. Looking at Sarah Jessica Parker's bust, I would contend there's a flat surface already there. Anyway, she's so unmoved by the husband that she runs into ex-lover Aidan in an Arabian market and winds up kissing him. This creates so much guilt that OJ Simpson would be envious. We get endless discussions about an idle kiss. Hello? It's not like Carrie stripped off her clothes and was riding the guy like Willie Shoemaker in the Belmont Stakes. You get the picture? There's no conflict anywhere in this movie, quite ironic since it was shot in the war-torn Mideast.

Again, we have Kim Cattrall trolling around and fucking the phone book. In this sequel, she gets up to the letter "N." Meanwhile, I don't think any guy in his right mind would want to be anywhere inside her. For God's sake, her cobwebs must have cobwebs. But, at regular intervals, she announces that her sexual prowess is all thanks to Suzanne Somers' new book on hormones. This is perhaps one of the most gratuitous product placements since Lucy and Ricky Ricardo were smoking Phillip Morris cigarettes over a game of bridge with the Mertzes.

But, wait, there's more. The first 45 minutes are devoted to a gay wedding, which is officiated by Liza Minnelli playing herself. The jokes come so fast to me that I wind up with a mental form of ice cream brain freeze. Meanwhile, will some nice dentist please step forward and fit Liza with a pair of dentures correctly? She is starting to sound like she took acting lessons from Elmer Fudd. She lisped so much the front row in the theater was actually getting wet.

"Sex and the City 2" mysteriously runs two-and-a-half-hours, which is about two-and-a-half-hours too long. Amazingly, about two hours in, there is a scene between Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis. They are having drinks in a bar and having a frank talk about juggling marriage and motherhood. It is so smart and organic that the scene itself appears to be a fugitive from a good script. Did it wander in from the multiplex screen next door? Because this scene actually has a good vibe, the sensation is jarring. I desperately wanted to see more of them. No worries. Thirty seconds later, I'm watching Kim Cattrall wrap her ankles around her ears one more time.

Sadly, five minutes of intelligence doesn't make up for the other one-hundred-and-forty-five minutes of sheer banality. It's time to take needle and thread to these fressers and sew up any currently used orefices. Next, they're liable to have them circle the globe in the space shuttle. My fear is that the actresses involved will next be renovating bathrooms and will need the money they get for doing a "Sex and the City 3."

Let's hope that their bathrooms look just fine as is.

Dinner last night: Chicken and spicy sesame noodles.