Charlotte (Kristin Davis) and Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) ponder motherhood in a rare thoughtful moment of Sex and the City 2.

Sex in the City 2 and The Runaways turn back the feminist clock, Elizabeth Kerr reports.

There was a time - the 1970s to be exact - when all filmmakers were conscious of the feminist movement. Granted, it was a singularly white, middle-class, Western movement, but we all have to start somewhere (though this was hardly the beginning). The 1970s was a great time for girls: My Brilliant Career, 3 Women, Julia, and Norma Rae graced screens. On television nuanced, complex, recognizable women like Mary Tyler Moore and Maude tempered the jiggle TV movement. Things got ugly in the 1980s, but then came the subtly anarchic, self-determining women of The Piano, Thelma & Louise and Roseanne, and things started looking up again.

Who would have thought we've regressed in the decades since? What has misguidedly been dubbed the post-feminist era has been defined by an illusory empowerment that, sadly, younger women and girls are buying into. The message now is, "The bras have been burned, you can go to university, embrace your equality through consumerism and taking off your shirt for poor quality YouTube videos." Women have become convinced that it's not exploitation if a so-called choice is involved. That is some kind of Kool-Aid.

So what connects Sex and the City 2 (opened in Hong Kong on Thursday) and The Runaways (opening on the 17th) is the spit in the sisterhood's eye each represents.

A defiant shock to the late-1990s senses in its HBO days, SATC2 has stripped away all that made the show great - chiefly its emotional heart and empathetic, contemporary characters. Though dressed up in pretty clothes, at the core it was about four women who were friends first and shirked expectations they'd claw each other's eyes out for a tube of lipstick. The Runaways focuses on fast rise and faster fall of the mid-1970s California rock band that eventually gave us Joan Jett and Lita Ford (flash devil horn fingers now). Little better than a music history footnote now, The Runaways made it safe for all the growling axwomen that followed. Jett (later with The Blackhearts) is the woman who didn't change the lyrics when she covered Tommy James' "Crimson and Clover" years before kd lang and Melissa Etheridge came out and came out.

Cherie Currie and Joan Jett (Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart) take a break from being rock and roll trailblazers in The Runaways.

So if ever there were a summer for girls to bask in some progressive cinematic girliness and let their inner agitators breathe, this is it. But what happens is 200 steps back for the two steps forward SATC and The Runaways took all those years ago.

As a film, The Runaways suffers a distinct first-time feel. Music video director Floria Sigismondi ironically lacks the necessary flair for capturing concerts, and the narrative follows that most abused biopic path: An innocent with raw talent and drive is discovered, the abuse of controlled substances/featured musician happens, the band/musician suffers a massive flame out/breakdown, said band/musician comes out of it a better person that goes on to great personal and/or professional success (Ray, Walk the Line, Bird). Kristen Stewart makes amends for her great anti-feminist work in Twilight, and she's reasonably convincing as Jett-complete with slouch and attitude. Dakota Fanning isn't quite as fortunate as the (admittedly) less interesting central figure (it's based on Currie's book). She has neither the mature sex appeal nor the adolescent naivete to pull off Currie's peculiar brand of guitar goddess. Fanning as an actress is stuck between a youthful rock and an adult hard place.

But the biggest failure is in the sellout the film becomes. This should be a film for girls; instead it's a boys' soft-core lesbian fantasy. The film never investigates the impact of The Runaways being manipulated into peddling what they were rebelling against. Sigismondi crystallizes the rift that erupts between Jett, Ford (Scout Taylor-Compton) and Currie as being rooted in petty jealousy as opposed to ideology. The bond between the young women is a sketch at best, and when Currie calls a radio station in the coda to speak with the now-famous Jett, the scene has all the punch of a hair gel commercial. Does Currie have regrets? Does Jett feel vindicated? Who knows? Sigismondi doesn't bother to ask.

At the other end of the spectrum, SATC2's only affecting moments come when the movie briefly recalls its roots (in two scenes involving Miranda actually acting like a friend to Charlotte). Otherwise, the film is insult laden on insult, as if writer/director Michael Patrick King has forgotten who these women are and reduced them to irritating, cartoonish adolescents.

We begin in Manhattan at a gay wedding (where Liza Minnelli cameos, performing the no-longer-current "Single Ladies." Ick.). It's two years after the first movie, and Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) is whining about her fantastic job, mid-town apartment and understanding husband; Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is whining about her hot nanny; Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) is whining about her chauvinist boss; and Samantha (Kim Cattrall) is whining about menopause. Throw in some egregious displays of princess-feminist wealth - the four girlfriends take a free trip to Abu Dhabi, well known for fiscal restraint, and then whine about it - just as the world emerges from a recession, and the rift between audience and characters is complete. For the middle-class women that could at one time revel in a little bit of aspirational fantasy, it's now a case of "Shut up!"

In a lame attempt to rekindle the series' ability to speak a universal tongue, the foursome has some Middle Eastern karaoke fun with "I Am Woman" (again, ick) and Samantha nearly starts a riot in a souk over condoms in her purse. They're rescued by their Emirati sisters who reveal Louis Vuitton beneath the burkas. Fashion feminism! Who knew this was the foundation of the movement?

The point is that Carrie et al would never have caused riots and flagrantly disrespected local customs (whether they liked them or not) on television, where they were smarter and more tolerant. SATC2 sells out too: Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte have become strangers that simply perpetuate the images they started off breaking down. There's lots of creaky dialogue that "addresses the issues" and feels like a condescending afterthought. It's enough to make me want to go home, crank the old Joan Jett vinyl and find some Maude re-runs.

Sex and the City 2

Written and directed by Michael Patrick King, based on the books by Candace Bushnell. Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Cynthia Nixon, Kristin Davis, and Kim Cattrall. USA, 144 minutes, IIB.

The Runaways

Written and directed by Floria Sigismondi, based on the book by Cherie Currie. Starring Dakota Fanning, Kristen Stewart and Michael Shannon. Country, USA, 106 minutes, IIB.

(HK Edition 06/12/2010 page4)