Why did they bother?

As you can tell by the length of time it took me to write about seeing it, my reaction to the Sex and the City 2 was....eh. It doesn't even warrant on "m" to make it "meh".

To be honest I really wasn't expecting very much, trailers with footage of the ladies riding camels, dressed like the Arabian Village people, complete with ridiculous tiny, cowboy hat for Miranda, did not bode well. I knew going in to keep my expectations low since this was obviously an attempt to squeeze more money out of the franchise and it would be impossible to top the emotional roller coaster of the first one, that tied every story line up in a trite-but-I'm-a-sucker-for-happy-endings-so-I'll-take-it bow. Sadly, even my low expectations were akin to Tom Cruise's hopes to be on top again - way too high.

First of all, the premise of the movie is retarded - as in it must have been conceive by the mentally challenged. The big question is whether or not you can make your own rules in marriage. This question is first brought up during Stanford and Anthony's wedding which was such a gay stereotype brought to life, I thought it was a dream sequence when the ancient Liza Minelli came out in thigh-high boots and did a geriatric version of "All the Single Ladies". Before they exchange vows, Anthony blurts out to the whole crew that the only reason he's getting married is that Stanford will allow him to cheat. This really pissed me off. As if homosexuals everywhere aren't fighting hard enough to have their marriages seen as "real". And that fact that this was said in front of Miranda who turned to look blandly at Steve, instead of saying, "And what do you think about that, cheating asshole?", as I would have done for the rest of his natural life, was the cherry on the sundae.

The "rules" of marriage are brought up again when, later in the movie, Big suggests they use Carrie's apartment as a getaway for each of them and spend two nights a week "off" from each other. Carrie is toying with the idea, even after Charlotte, with her married lady common sense, tells her marriage is two people sharing a home and a bed and a life every single goddamn day, good or bad. To get to the bottom of it and really work on her marriage, Carrie runs away to join the girls on a all expenses paid trip to Abu Dhabi courtesy of Samantha who, apparently, was wearing her too tight, bad idea jeans thinking she belongs in the Middle-damn-East. Oh, and Samantha's in menopause, which you will be reminded of a million times over the course of the film, in a we-know-she's-too-damn-old-but-we'll-keep-having-her-admit-it mea culpa.

While in Abu Dhabi, who does Carie run into, in a spice market, wearing an outfit that would surely have her dragged through the streets by her hair by an angry mob, but Aidan. And then a space ship lands. Yeah, both pretty believable. Anyway she winds up kissing Aidan, only to realize she loves Big, Samantha gets arrested for doing some dry-humping on the beach, and then everyone's back in New York. Meh.

Sure, there were some touching scenes. Such as Miranda force-feeding Charlotte drinks until she confesses that motherhood is not everything she dreamed it would be, asking, "And we have full-time help! How do mothers do this alone?" To which I shouted in the theater, "WE DRINK!", but on the whole this thing was turd and I wish they had never made it. I for one am going to pretend it doesn't exist.

Definitely NO snaps in a Z formation.