By Charly SHELTON

For those of you like this reporter, who had very little desire to see “Sex and the City 2” thinking they are whipping a dead horse with this franchise, I sympathize. But after seeing it, it did have a bit of a sparkle.

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) realizes her marriage with Mr. Big (Chris Noth) has become sedentary; Charlotte (Kristin Davis) has two kids driving her crazy and a nanny who is tempting her husband away from her; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is working at a job that she hates and steals Charlotte from her family; and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is fighting a losing battle with menopause using creams and hormones. The four girls needed to get away.

So when Samantha is offered a publicity job in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, the four jump at the chance to live it up in one of the richest countries on Earth. But as they find themselves and solve their problems, they discover they need those very things that were causing the problems.

As earlier stated, this movie (from the trailer, internet buzz, and common sense) was destined to be horrible. And it wasn’t far off. But there is a single sparkle.

Cattrall is no longer what she used to be and so her anything-but-subtle sexual comments which, when the series began were funny or even enticing, are now just uncomfortable as she ages but still acts 20. No sparkle.

Parker is OK, but the long unnecessary close-ups did more to make me lose my appetite than to understand that permanent pensive/confused/nauseous stare she holds for the whole movie. No sparkle.

Kristen Davis has held up pretty well, was surprisingly sexy in the right way, did a decent job in her role, and didn’t over play it. Cattrall could learn something. Davis would get a sparkle, but she was brought down by her co-stars who gave her nothing to play with. No major sparkle.

So where is this sparkle, you ask, in this horrible attempt at a movie? It lies in the commentary on the Middle East. Sending four headstrong, empowered women to a region where some women are made to cover all but their eyes is “a crash course to wackiness.”

But the only redeeming thing from the movie was the commentary on the way these women live. Paraphrasing here of course, one character says something to the effect of, “For a country that is so ahead in so many ways, they are so backwards in many other ways.”  This was great.  And when our girls are in trouble, the local Abu Dhabi women help them escape and in the process we see that they are fashionistas beneath the burkas. Very nice, and a great way to handle the issue. This is the sparkle, the diamond ring on a corpse of a franchise that had already overstayed its welcome in 2008 with the first movie. And despite Rex Reed (among many other critics) comparing this movie to a giant “number two,” the one little sparkle was worth mentioning.

Rated R for sexual content and some language. As for the film, this reviewer gives it only 1 sparkle. 1 out of 5.

  review, sex in the city