If you've read this, you know what kind of a place I was in as I viewed this movie. Very BFFish. So I think that really helped my opinion of it.. It was better than I thought it was going to be. I saw the first one forever ago when it first came out on DVD. I enjoyed it, it was just a little too cute for my taste. So I expected much the same going into this one. And it was. Much the same. But this time it felt a little deeper, a little more grown up to me. I don't remember a lot about the first one, but it seemed like it was more about true friends and first crushes and such. This one took on more adult topics like pregnancy and mental illness.
Once again, it follows the four friends on their separate journeys through life as they spread out around the world. They continue to pass the magic jeans (that miraculously fits them all) between them every two weeks, although this time not all the friends take the "magic" so seriously. The different storylines can get confusing, especially since the screenwriters seemed to think the 1st movie would still be fresh in our minds. Two funerals right from the get-go still leave me wondering who died. The one relationship I remembered from the original was never mentioned in the sequel, while another carried over but had me wondering who the heck he was. (Until my viewing buddy graciously reminded me who he was from the first one.) I thought I was confused because I didn't remember the first one all that much, but my friend, who had read all the books, was even more confused because apparently they decided to squish all three sequels into this one movie. Yeah, confusing.
But still entertaining. Alexis Bledel (Lena), is going to art school and nursing a broken heart, which she attempts to do in the arms of a hunky nude model. (That was kind of weird.) Blake Lively, as Bridget, takes off on an archeology dig (so...is she a soccer player or an archaeologist?) and ends up digging up her painful past. Amber Tamblyn, back as the kooky Tibby, is falling in love and scared, especially once she decides to take things to the next level in her relationship. (This storyline, which involves a pregnancy scare, didn't bother me or my three adult friends, but when I thought about all the 7th graders out there sure to watch this flick, I was a tad disturbed.) And America Ferrera, as Carmen, is worth watching the movie for alone. She is by far my favorite of the four, so real, so down to earth. (And can I just say how refreshing it is to see her up there, in all her 5'1", full-figured glory, with all those taller, skinny actresses?) Her character is off to Vermont to work backstage on a play but ends up closer to the front of the stage and falling for her leading man.
With the exception of maybe one, the different storylines kept me interested, even as they bounced back and forth. The part that seemed out of place to me, ironically enough, was the pants themselves. They were such a minimal part of the plot, thrown in here and there to remind us what the movie is supposed to be about, and every time it showed them, it was like, huh? Oh, right, pants. Even the characters themselves seemed ready to ditch the pants. (I think maybe they realized they weren't 13 anymore.) You'd think this would make me appreciate the way it ended, but instead it felt wrong somehow.
When watching a movie about friendships based on magic jeans, this is the type of stuff I log away for my review:
~ The hair. I loved that most of the girls' hair was not perfect. In fact, "sloppy" seemed to be the theme when it came to the coifs, but I thought "natural." I loved it.
~ The clothes. I loved seeing all the different outfits and how they matched the girls' personalities. From Lena's perfectly put-together ensembles, to Bridget's sporty cas, to Carmen's laid-back basics, to Tibby's outrageous numbers, wardrobe must have had a ton of fun on this one.
~ The locations. Greece, Vermont, New York, Alabama, Turkey...the wannabe world-traveller inside me was definitely visually stimulated.
~ The quotes. My personal favorite: "How do you say 'lost pants' in Greek?"
"Greek girls do not lose their pants!!"
Bottom line: Fun chick flick to watch with friends. Try the kettle corn at Fairchild. It's yummy.
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