I have one defense for seeing this movie: My little sister is about to go away to college and we hardly see each other anymore, so this was a chance for us to hangout. I hope that is a good enough reason to avoid me being ridiculed forever. Here it goes.
Bridget (Blake Lively), Lena (Alexis Bledel) Carmen (America Ferrera) and Tibby(Amber Tamblyn) are back. The school year is over and Carmen is excited to see all of her friends all summer. Sadly things don't work out so much. Bridget got accepted into some archeology dig in Turkey, Lena is going to draw a naked dude all summer, Tibby flunked a class and has to take summer school and Carmen feels betrayed. She takes up an offer from another friend to go to Vermont and work back stage at a summer theater. Bridget's story involves an unusual love for finding skull fragments followed by visiting her grandmother for the first time in many years. She is trying to find out why her mother killed herself. Tibby has sex with her boyfriend, thinks she is pregnant and breaks up with him. Lena falls for the nude model, but her Greek boyfriend comes back and complicates things. Carmen ends up as the lead in the play, falls in love with a Heath Ledger look-a-like and wonders what happened to the sisterhood because the girls are falling away from each other.
I have a very vague recollection of the first movie, but honestly does it matter? I mean seriously, this movie is so not aimed at me. However, it is actually kind of a good movie. It helps that all 4 of the girls can actually act. Blake Lively is kind of the next big thing right now on T.V and of course, America Ferrera (total bitch, tried to get out this movie) is Ugly Betty. Alexis Bledel will always be Rory Gilmore and while Amber Tamblyn is usually making awful sequels (Grudge 2 and Havoc 2) she is a pretty talented girl. It is nice to see some young actresses who can actually act and aren't tabloid fodder all of the time. The problem with the movie is that there a 4 girls heading into different directions and in two hours they have to tell 4 different stories. Things get lost, characters disappear for far too long and we end up with a lot of really short scenes that we have to try and piece together to get the stories.
Yet, I am a sucker for stories about friendships transcending everything. I am a total sucker for stories where friends fight, but are still there in an emergency and this is one of those stories. Carmen remains the main focus, even though I found her story to be the least appealing and Ferrera, while on protest for this thing, does a good job of narrating the story, while being involved. My sister told me this movie was a combination of the final 3 books, which it kind of felt like. At times I wasn't sure why certain things were happening, but my guess they were nods to the books. Each book is narrated by a different girl, which would have been kind of cool here, because it would have given one of the other girls a chance to shine in the lead role.
I don't really have much else to say, except the movie goes on for about 15 minutes longer than I was prepared for it go. I would complain but taking the story back to Greece, gave Blake Lively the chance to show off her body more, so complaining just seems dumb. The girls are all great together and they are clearly enjoying playing these characters, so it is really hard to find fault in it. The theme of friendship being forever is a theme I think anyone can get behind and their is a fair amount of humor, especially from Tamblyn. I doubt they will churn anymore of these out, which is a shame because I need more Alexis Bledel in my life.
Final Grade: B-
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