"Battlefield Earth," "Ishtar" and "Gigli" were just warm-ups for the critical drubbing of "Sex and the City 2." The nation's movie reviewers have attacked the film with fangs and talons bared, gleefully tearing it to ribbons. The feeding frenzy is like watching a pack of hyenas devour four overmatched cougars. Here's a sampling: "Sex and the City 2" -- an enervated, crass and gruesomely caricatured trip to nowhere -- seems conceived primarily to find new and more cynical ways to abuse the loyalty of its audience. (A) thread of self-hatred animates this "Sex and the City" that was only hinted at in previous incarnations. – Washington Post It's offensive to the demographic it claims to adore -- straight women and gay men -- who are depicted, more than ever, as hopelessly obsessed with the surface of things, to the point where they forget there's anything below that. The only reason it isn't offensive to straight men is that there aren't any; Big is something else, a shambling, half-dead ghoul enslaved to a demonic harridan. – Salon Call this sequel callow, garish, ghastly, grisly or grotesque—and it is all of those things, plus borderline-interminable at 146 minutes. – Wall Street Journal (S)hould have borrowed a subtitle from another picture opening this week and called itself "Sex and the City: The Sands of Time." – New York Times 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. - New York Observer King and his cast seem content to put everything on autopilot and hope glamour and shopping sprees will be enough to carry them. – Toronto Star (I)t's so painful to watch, it will make you want to scratch your eyes out of your head. – Associated Press An insult … a slap in the face for the four gal pals (often photographed at unflattering angles) and an affront to Muslims. – USA Today (T)his shtick is getting old. (I)f we were all friends in real life, at this point we'd probably stop taking their calls. – New York Daily News Some of these people make my skin crawl. (F)lyweight bubbleheads…humdrum…narcissistic…idiot…arthritic…loathsome. I haven't seen such hilarity since "Abbott and Costello in the Foreign Legion."– Chicago Sun-Times (W)hy have these women, photographed drearily and insanely costumed, become full-on drag queens? They're barely human anymore. – Chicago Tribune Atrophied … the satire is sagging, the irony's atrophied and the funny is flabby. – Los Angeles Times Godawful.(T)he movie goes from boring to lame , cartoonishly offensive and just ridiculous. – RichardRoeper.com A decent story, witty dialogue, scenes that give good actresses something to do: "Sex and the City 2" holds all of those things far out of reach, maybe because someone at the top thinks that the womenfolk out there in the audience, if they're distracted by enough sequins and silly hats, won't notice what's missing. – Movieline (A) valentine to conspicuous spending that is as banal as it is bloated. "Sex and the City 2" isn't a feature film as much as it is consumer porn. The audience is not asked to relate to the characters ... as much as to their shoes, their bags, their apartments, their couture, their stuff. – Arizona Republic It's worse than "Sex and the City 1," and that alone is a remarkable achievement. – Toronto Globe and Mail
