I am the queen of packing light. I can go to Europe for two weeks taking only a carry-on bag and a purse.
Just saying. Contrast that with the half dozen or more pieces of luggage per person that Carrie Bradshaw and her three BFFs bring along with them on a weeklong jaunt to Abu Dhabi in “Sex and the City 2.”
All that luggage — allowing for seemingly five costume changes per day per character complete with ever higher heels — is the perfect metaphor for this hapless sequel. It’s way too much, with little of it vital.
And having the girls run off to Abu Dhabi, of all places, doesn't quite do it.
Ardent fans of the show and the girls will probably love it. A besotted trio of women sitting next to me at a screening greeted every pallid plot twist with gasps, every new outfit with squeals, every sex joke with bawdy laughs.
It’s the lure of the familiar. Sequels are cinematic comfort food. You already know the characters, you know how they will react to situations, and you know the movie’s tone.
As Hollywood churns out ever more sequels, it might want to view “SATC2” as a cautionary tale.
The movie has no real reason to exist other than there was money to be made. The original TV series proved a goldmine for HBO and the first film, 2008’s “Sex and the City,” grossed $415 million worldwide, which buys a lot of Manolos.
If fans loved seeing Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha (the invaluable Kim Cattrall), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) clickety-clacking their way across the big screen the first time, they’d doubtless line up to see them a second and, if early forecasts on how well “SATC2” is poised to do, a third and a fourth.
The same is true of too many sequels. They get made for business reasons, not because of compelling storylines.
By the last of the “Lethal Weapon” series, which dragged on for four films (and there’s now talk of a fifth), it seemed a miracle that either Danny Glover or Mel Gibson could even pretend to care about their tired lines or scenes.
“Spider-Man 3” had to resort to making Spider-Man himself the villain, at least briefly, to goose up the plot. More recently, “Iron Man 2” seemed all noise and bluster.
The Bond series at least changes 007s every few years, which semi-revitalizes the franchise, though it too was looking mighty tired in its most recent go-round.
The notable exception: the “Harry Potter” series. That’s because the kids at Hogwarts are growing up before our eyes and the movies, while self-contained, are all building to the eighth and final film. And it was based on an exceptionally high-quality series of books, with an author who knew where the story was going.
Lately, to avoid the inevitable franchise fatigue, Hollywood has taken to mounting reboots — take a familiar character and go back to the beginning. It worked for director Christopher Nolan’s 2005’s “Batman Begins” and for 2006’s Bond film, “Casino Royale,” which introduced Daniel Craig as the martini-chugging secret agent in his pre-007 days. It was also tried with “The Incredible Hulk,” but with far less success.
Of course, to reboot “SATC” — if you were making, say, “SATC: The Pre-K Years” or “SATC: Coming to Manhattan” — a quartet of new, fresh-faced ingénues would have to be found for the parts, and you’d likely risk alienating established fans.
Instead of a reboot, in “SATC 2,” again written and directed by Michael Patrick King, we get an uninspired story about Carrie’s mid-life crisis. When the film opens, it is laboriously established that she has been married to Mr. Big (Chris Noth) for two years and feels that the “sparkle” has gone out of the marriage. "Shades of last week's equally uninspired "Shrek 4: Forever After."
The movie lurches from set piece to set piece (including a gay wedding with two grooms and Liza Minnelli singing a hoot-worthy version of Beyoncé’s “Single Ladies”) and costume change to costume change. There are a few funny lines along the way, and Cattrall has her moments as the sexually voracious Samantha, but one is always aware that nothing is really at stake for these characters.
The TV series already gave every character a happy ending in its 2004 finale. The first film gave fans closure — if they still needed it — as Carrie finally wed Mr. Big. End of story. Really.
