Previous installments of 'Sex and the City' have settled the ancient question of what women want -- love, sex and designer clothes, though not necessarily in that order. Now 'Sex and the City 2' reveals what Islamic women want. Call this sequel callow, garish, ghastly, grisly or grotesque -- and it is all of those things, plus borderline-interminable at 146 minutes. During a visit to Abu Dhabi, though, Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte discover that the chadors worn by their Muslim sisters conceal -- you guessed it -- the glories of this year's fashion collection. So much for a clash of civilizations.

This dismalcomedy provokes a crash of expectations, however modest they may have been after the first theatricalversion of the HBO series. It's a silly symphony of big, anxious smiles and big, nervous laughs. (In a film for the cognitively challenged, everything but the tacky wardrobe is several sizes too big.) It's a cinematic dairy farm, milking every close-up and every gag, whether about menopause (the four friends are forever young only in reruns) or about a glamorous Irish nanny's bouncy breasts. It's an almost avant-garde adventure in aimlessness. Apart from an elaborately cloying gay wedding, nothing happens until somewhere near the half-hour mark, when Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) and her beloved Mr. Big (Chris Noth) come up against a certifiable conflict -- he wants to stay home and she doesn't. That's when 'Sex and the City 2' also becomes a triumph of product placement, the product being Abu Dhabi (though what we see is actually Morocco). 'Dubai is over,' a dubious sheik declares. 'Abu Dhabi is the future.'

Maybe so, but it looks like the past -- specifically, a Bob Hope and Bing Crosby road movie with Kim Cattrall's Samantha as a nymphomaniacal (and, she never lets us forget, menopausal) stand-in for Dorothy Lamour. Samantha manages to scandalize her Muslim hosts with carnality in public places, while Carrie has a flirtation with having a flirtation after an encounter with an old flame that plays -- and looks -- like a potboiler produced by Ross Hunter. The production as a whole, which was perpetrated, as before, by Michael Patrick King, turns on a strategy of avoidance. Real feelings lurk just below the surface -- Samantha's terror of growing old, Carrie's fear of eventual tedium in a childless marriage. Yet the surface is where the movie stays, like an old submarine with dead batteries.

Joe Morgenstern

• previous [´pri:viəs] a.先，前，以前的 (初中英语单词)
• conceal [kən´si:l] vt.藏；隐瞒 (初中英语单词)
• collection [kə´lekʃən] n.收集；征收；募捐 (初中英语单词)
• modest [´mɔdist] a.谦虚的；朴素的 (初中英语单词)
• series [´siəri:z] n.连续；系列；丛书 (初中英语单词)
• anxious [´æŋkʃəs] a.担忧的；渴望的 (初中英语单词)
• nervous [´nə:vəs] a.神经的；神经过敏的 (初中英语单词)
• wedding [´wediŋ] n.婚礼，结婚 (初中英语单词)
• beloved [bi´lʌvd] a.为....所爱的 n.爱人 (初中英语单词)
• conflict [´kɔnflikt, kən´flikt] n.&vi.战斗；抵触 (初中英语单词)
• triumph [´traiəmf] n.胜利 vi.得胜，战胜 (初中英语单词)
• actually [´æktʃuəli] ad.事实上；实际上 (初中英语单词)
• encounter [in´kauntə] vt.&n.偶然相遇；冲突 (初中英语单词)
• hunter [´hʌntə] n.猎人；猎狗；猎马 (初中英语单词)
• terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
• necessarily [´nesisərili] ad.必定，必然地 (高中英语单词)
• ghastly [´gɑ:stli] a.苍白的；可怕的 (高中英语单词)
• dismal [´dizməl] a.灰暗的；阴郁的 (高中英语单词)
• comedy [´kɔmidi] n.喜剧；喜剧场面 (高中英语单词)
• submarine [´sʌbməri:n] a.海中的 n.潜水艇 (高中英语单词)
• grotesque [grəu´tesk] a.奇异的，想象中的 (英语四级单词)
• theatrical [θi´ætrikəl] a.戏院的；戏剧(性)的 (英语四级单词)
• version [´və:ʃən, ´və:rʒən] n.翻译；说明；译本 (英语四级单词)
• symphony [´simfəni] n.交响乐(曲) (英语四级单词)
• wardrobe [´wɔ:drəub] n.衣柜；全部服装 (英语四级单词)
• designer [di´zainə] n.设计者 (英语六级单词)
• charlotte [´ʃɑ:lət] n.水果奶油布丁 (英语六级单词)
• half-hour [´hɑ:f-auə] n.&a.(每)三十分钟的 (英语六级单词)
• dubious [´dju:biəs] a.怀疑的；可疑的 (英语六级单词)
• strategy [´strætidʒi] n.兵法；战略 (英语六级单词)