" Promise draining away with duration. A little romance with too much complication. Not enough anecdotal inspiration. Film finds itself in a mediocre rank location."
Sisterhood of the traveling pants 2 (6.5/10)
Setting the scene
Imagine you are a bee ... Out on the hunt for nectar. You don't find a sweetly scented rose but end up settling on a daisy. The daisy is fine. It still provides the nectar you want but you wonder. You wonder if your fellow bees have found a flower which is more salubrious. This is the theme of the scene setting. The not knowing of characters lives and how they are unfolding. This is a capture. Gets you wanting to know more and acts as an effective hook.
Main body
The beginning shows real promise with many dramatic emotional scenes with 2 of the main characters. You almost expect some relationship development but nothing feels long term. It feels like nothing is real or deep enough to provide a real romance vibe.
Perhaps the art of the film is it's action and progression but for this, all the scenes and characters should be as emphatic as each other. This just isn't the case. The second film learns from the issue of focusing too heavily on the main character in the first. With this though it struggles to make each small excerpt from every character dramatic.
The greatest drama begins with a combination of characters. One is left out from any really emotional or engaging events. Things get a little tedious later on since the drama is siphoned just towards the main character. Only a short snippet for the left out character is provided to try to reengage or wake up the viewer. This seems a bit desperate and feeble however and some stones are left unnecessarily unturned.
The main body therefore seems to fade away and could benefit from a little truncation or just quality time focusing on relationships. That said the stories do have variety but just aren't on the whole that entertaining.
Music
Quieter music as well as increased fading was used especially well for sadness and turmoil. This enhanced the authenticity for just one of the characters though. Again this was far more effective at the early part of the main film body but by the end was not noticeable unfortunately. In general the music was calming and relaxing which suits the films friendship vibes although perhaps needs changing up where things are threatened or more exciting.
Ending
The ending is too much like the first which is a shame. There could have been a twist in the tale or the significance of the pants revealed which would have been nice.
Summary
A varied combination lacking seasoning. Not fully reasoned and seasoned by any stretch although some good relationship scenes, location variety and number of life snippets just about get you to the end of the film. No better or worse I feel than the original but the film appears to suffer from less surprise after viewing the first.
