BOTTOM LINE: Atrocious and awful, this sequel takes a big dump on the legacy of the acclaimed HBO television series “Sex and the City”, proving to be pointless, plotless, stupid, mean-spirited and unnecessary, and all at two and a half hours to boot.

THE GOOD: With films like these I wonder why I have to write a “Good” section, or even if I’m able to, but I will give it a go. Moments of this film are reminiscent of the series “Sex and the City”, mostly in the first half hour where we catch up with the girls in New York. There is a rather unusually edited, but well done, series of flashback sequences where Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) tells of her arrival in New York and her first meetings with her gal pals. Then after the requisite coffee table chat, a few subplots emerge, including Charlotte’s (Kristin Davis) bra-less nanny who she becomes paranoid about, Miranda’s (Cynthia Nixon) trouble with her boss, Samantha’s (Kim Cattrall) descent in to menopause and Carrie’s lack of sparkle in her marriage to Mr Big (Chris Noth). All of these elements echo the series commentary of women and their societal issues, and are somewhat fun while they last. Chris Noth is still good as Mr Big while he is around. These moments make you hopeful that the filmmakers were able to re-create the magic of the original television show, and of the first film.

THE BAD: This film is awful; painfully awful. The series had an edge to it in its time, thanks to the characters and witty dialogue, which was carried over in to the first film, but this time out, they are outrageous caricatures that seem to be lampooning themselves. Samantha’s sexist dialogue, while funny and correctly written in the show, are irritating to the extreme (just check out the “Lawrence of my labia” line half way through the film as an example). Sequence after sequence in this film are just plain bad. The gay wedding featuring Liza Minelli in the opening act is so over the top and clichéd that it is not funny. The depths of the subplots involving the four girls barely rate as a television episode, less that of a film, with the most promising one in Miranda’s sexist boss being wrapped up and solved within ten minutes of it being mentioned. Carrie’s worry about the growing boredom in her marriage to Mr Big are infantile compared to their previous issues; such a big deal is made out of a kiss exchanged between Carrie and an ex-boyfriend in this film that you would wonder if you were watching some stupid teen soap. The decision to take the girls to Abu Dhabi not only destroys the location motif of “sex and the city”, it woefully juxtaposes the four successful women against the ultra-conservative Middle Eastern culture. Ironically on this point, the film (and the series) could have had its most powerful material yet, but director Michael Patrick King’s apparently progressive comments on the ‘backward’ ways of the Middle Eastern culture towards woman is executed in such a mean-spirited and juvenile way that it completely denigrates the message he is trying to convey; in the end, his comments look more backward than what he is commenting on. Sorry to all the fans out there, but you have been badly let down by this atrocity of a motion picture which leaves behind a very bad coda for an otherwise great franchise.