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And Sex and the City 2? Critically, it was eviscerated as if it were a Michael Bay sequel. The movie was attacked, its glitz was attacked, its status as a product of and reflection upon the USA was attacked, the women were attacked, the characters were attacked, the cinematographer and director were attacked for making the women look intentionally unflattering in many shots. It was a bloodbath. On a much higher budget of $100 million, Sex and The City 2 ended up not making that back domestically ($95 million) and not quite grossing two times that on foreign shores ($188). In total, its worldwide gross underperformed the first by nearly 33%. The early signs were in that the returnees would be decreasing when, over the Memorial Day weekend, SATC2 took six days to equal what the first made in three.

Michael Patrick King, a longtime writer (31 episodes), director (10 episodes) and executive producer (the entire run) of the HBO series handled writing and directing gigs on both movies. He is the one to praise for what I liked about the first and to single out for all that stumbles hard in the sequel. He also co-produced both and he even secured a Shyamalan-esque “Written, Produced and Directed by” credit for SATC2. This latter is indicative, along with the blinged-out New Line Cinema logo that opens the film, of the navel-gazing, splashy, gaudy, exhausting and underwhelming bauble that is Sex and the City 2. If the first was plot-driven, this one feels set-piece driven. Since everything really was wrapped up with a bow at the end of the first movie, there were two choices for a new movie: 1) Dig deeper into the lives of the characters as they continue to age and attempt to find balance between personal, professional, domestic, and social spheres or 2) Send them all on a ridiculously lavish trip to the Middle East for a clashing of cultures and more groaningly awful puns (“Abu Dhabi doo!”) than you can shake a burka at. King, Darren Star, Sarah Jessica Parker and Warner Bros. opted for the latter.

I don’t make it a habit to go in with lowered expectations, but after the drubbing that SATC2 received, I was wary. And for the first half hour and times in the middle third, those fears were realized. Earlier this year, Edgar Wright adopted a strategy of overkill in adapting Scott Pilgrim vs the World and the result was electrifying. Here, King adopts a strategy of excess, as if every penny of that $100 million needed to be worked into the costumes and set design and visually accounted for and the result is simply . . .excessive.

The picture opens with a wedding, or as Charlotte squeals “my gay best friend is marrying [Carrie’s] gay best friend.” That shrill tone carries on through to what must be the gayest wedding ever (I believe I am quoting verbatim). So gay, in fact, that Liza Minnelli officiates and then later hoofs her way (with a show-biz veteran’s zeal, if not exactly her stamina) through a cover of Beyonce’s “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It).” It’s all very much jaw dropping, and not in a positive way. The mansion setting for the wedding is so bejeweled with glitter and flash (and a men’s a capella group) that it left me bewildered and bedazzled.

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