I really admire the fact that they chose to call this movie The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2!

I mean, they coulda easily succumbed to sequel subtitlitis - - a very common and often debilitating disease. This mighta ended up being called TSOTTP: Revenge of the Jeans or The Dark Pants or something equally unimaginative. But, NO! This is a true sequel in that it carries on the stories of the four lead women in the following summer from the summer portrayed in the first film. The four storylines portray a nice spectrum of the lives that girls can get up to these days - - at least what privileged, self aware, girrrrrllll power girls can, anyways.

The four actresses are most enjoyable once again (I was a huge fan of the original movie!). The overlapping episodic storylines are entirely forgivable because of the authenticity with which they're told. I can hardly wait till "next" summer! I liked that the McGuffin was played down this time - - the pants are barely seen let alone worn. This is a very mature decision to let go of the artificial structure and head straight to the heart of the matter - - the four girls' lives and their increasing distance from each other. I'll bet ya right now - - the third film's gonna be downright melancholy...

All-in-all a very enjoyable and moving night at the movies.

12 out of 5.

For anyone who's interested in a contextualizing flashback, here's a link to the KJ review thread of the original movie...

Yay!! I'm really looking forward to this..

I really wasn't a huge fan of the first film despite the fact that I really like all four leads, but this installment was better in just about every way. Instead of being bogged down in unrealistic melodrama like the last one, the situations here feel a lot more mature and authentic - which is part of the reason I think it works so well this time around. The four actresses have undeniable chemistry and all of them add a lot to the proceedings. Standouts are definitely America Ferrera, who is wonderful and charismatic here, and Amber Tamblyn, who has many great moments throughout. Blake Lively and Alexis Bledel are both very good as well, but I felt their storylines weren't as interesting and engaging as the other two (especially Bledel's). The screenplay is smart and thoughtful for a film of this sort and gives all of the leads a lot to work with. It's a charming and heartwarming teen film that's definitely worth checking out. B+

And Bradley, I wouldn't hold your breath for another installment. I think they wrapped everything up at the end of the film pretty well and gave the storyline a general sense of closure.

Was was unrealistic. The dad finding a new family? Moving to Greece and cultures clashing? Or was it the death of a girl with a disease?

I'm referring primarily to the stupid storyline in Greece with the "Romeo and Juliet" theme (our families hate each other so we aren't allowed to be together) as well as the whole soccer camp thing as well. Ferrera's storyline was fine (she was the best thing about the first film as well), but I found Tamblyn's story incredibly overdramatic and cheesy.

Overdramatic. Maybe. Cheesy? No. Tamblyn handled it so well, and it was my favorite story line of the first. I agree on the Romeo and Juliet thing a bit though. I have yet to see this, but the first is excellent.

I actually want to see this, even though the first wasn't very good. And yeah, I'm sure this will be the last SISTERHOOD movie you see. Are there three books? I think they combined the second and third for this movie. It was hard enough to get everyone back together for this one (mostly because of America). If this could have done like 80 Million at the Box Office then maybe they'd want to do another, but even if it's still a decent success they aren't going to go out of their way to make another.

A worthy follow-up to the first film. The best thing about the original film was how Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget all felt like real people, not scripted characters. That holds true in this movie; none of the situations seem like they were written for a sitcom and the four come across as real friends. This is largely because of the wonderful performances of America Ferrera, Alexis Bledel, Amber Tamblyn, and Blake Lively, who are all equally as good as they were in the first film. This film's only real drawback is that the storylines aren't quite as involving in the sequel as they were in the original film, and a couple of them have uneven writing (mostly Bridget's, which significantly underuses Blythe Danner). Still, it's always nice to see films like this. B

SISTERHOOD OF THE TRAVELING PANTS 2 - 8/10 (B+)

I loved it! It was very enjoyable and so much better than the first one. I wish they eventually would do another.

I'm still happy with this one. Well, not really.

I loved the first one (A-). God, it was like one of the best light-toned girl-movie of all time. This one? First thing first, poorly/over-rush developed, in both storyline and the characters. Someone mentioned they combined the second and the third book in one film. That makes sense. It really showed.
Fortunately, thanks to all four leading actresses, this one is still watchable. It feels like I've known them too much to be able hating the film they're in. Plus, there were still some good moment in this film, here and there. I'm going with C+

f*ck

I was just going through IMDB.com and found out this film is a combination of 2nd + 3rd + 4th book. Wow, that's pretty tough task. And they just failed so miserably.

Oh Carmen, Lena, Tib, and Bee, you guys don't deserve this.

D

Terrible. I don't know how to describe it. But it loses the charm of the first and the characters are not grounded enough to make the stories more engaging.

Very disappointing.