It’s been a couple of years since we last checked in with the female fab four of the Big Apple. We catch up with Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda a couple of years after the events of the first film. The ladies seem to have moved on (or at least I hope they have seeing as how I’m not familiar AT ALL with the series or first film) as Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and “Big” (Chris Noth) continue to share their lives together in a relatively new marriage. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is feeling the pressure of balancing family and career. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) has become overwhelmed with the responsibilities of motherhood. And Samantha (Kim Cattrall)… well, Samantha is still the slu…errr… I mean independent free spirit that you may remember from the series.

We reunite with our fearless heroines just in time to join them for the wedding ceremony of friends Anthony (Mario Cantone) and Stanford (Willie Garson). I’m sure fans of Sex and the City would expect no less than this garish display as choir boys dressed in sequined top hats surrounded by flowing water fountains herald the arrival of each guest - ultimately leading to the entrance of Liza Minnelli (who officiates the festive occasion). All the ladies surrounding me in the theater seemed to really eat this up. Frankly, I was too busy thinking, “Wow! Who can afford that in this economy?”

The girls find out that Stanford has given Anthony permission to cheat once in a while and for some reason, this shocks them. Carrie states that this doesn’t hold with the traditional values of marriage. Now, I’m sitting in the theater trying to figure out if the irony behind her making this argument at a gay wedding was intentional or a brilliant little mistake in the writing process. I digress.

After way too long of a set-up, we learn that Carrie has been having some reservations as her marriage to “Big” goes from exciting and new to that feared “familiar” territory. “Big” wants to spend a night in watching TV and eating take-out. Apparently, that’s one night too many. Carrie Bradshaw gets taken out to fancy restaurants every night. Carrie Bradshaw is far too exciting on her own to even necessitate owning a television. Carrie Bradshaw really got on my freakin’ nerves. But I realize that I’m not who this movie is aimed at.

Through a twist of fate, Samantha gets the girls invited to spend a week at a new luxury hotel located in the heart of Abu Dhabi. Yep. The place Garfield the cat kept trying to send Nermal off to. While there, each of the ladies experiences joy, pain and maybe learns a little something in the process. Well, maybe not soo much that last part.

Honestly, it was about as entertaining to me as watching someone’s vacation videos. If there was something connecting these individual events to a greater plot, it was held together by some horribly frayed strings. What you basically had was “Here are the girls on a plane” “Here are the girls in different designer outfits in an airport” “Here are the girls in different designer outfits in a hotel” “Here are the girls in different designer outfits in the desert”. Every once in a while we were treated to a long and drawn out exchange where the ladies would recap everything we had seen up to that point, give obvious clues as to what plot elements we were about to introduce next and then end on some predictable lascivious Samantha one-liner that you would swear was written by the ghost of George Burns. Seriously, Kim Cattrall’s characterization was like a vaudeville act.

Again, I know that I’m not the audience for Sex and the City. This was made even more obvious to me as I sat there feeling my brain go numb surrounded by a theater full of women who were guffawing, cheering and groaning when the men would show any sort of disapproval at the selfish actions of some of these characters. I kid you not. There is a scene in this movie where one of our main characters is completely in the wrong, admits to it and when the dude she’s talking to says “I gotta think about this”, the women in the audience boo’d him.

And then it occurred to me. I’ve been looking at this Sex and the City phenomenon (for lack of a better term) the wrong way.

I’ve always assumed Sex and the City was some modern take on sisterhood and the power of the caring female spirit when it is nurtured and enriched by the company of other strong and like-minded women. A kind of Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants for the wealthy and shallow. But it seems that I was completely wrong. Sex and the City is science fiction/fantasy for women. Star Wars for chicks who don’t “get” Star Wars!

Where dudes fantasize about skimming the surface of the Death Star in an X-Wing, Sex and the City fans fantasize about going to Abu Dhabi and riding camels in designer blouses where they talk about the most trivial things yet everyone in the room hangs on each word. Guys would kill for a Millenium Falcon. These chicks want closets full of shoes. Star Wars fans fight over which one of them is more like Han. Ladies into Sex and the City fight over which one of them is Samantha… or is it Carrie? Still not convinced? We all saw those people dressed up like their favorite Star Wars characters when the new movies came out. I’m telling you, the overdressed women hoisting cosmos as they rush into the theater are the chick equivalent of that dude dressed like Man-Leia swinging his lightsaber around.

When I look at it from that point of view, I can see the value of something like Sex and the City. However, does that make this movie any better in my estimation? No. This film is pretty bad. From the director’s limited vision to it’s incredibly shallow and careless script, these characters seemed like flat paper dolls on the screen. I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to spend almost 20 bucks at the theater, I’d rather see something with a little more depth.