Film

Magically, the jeans still fit—even though, careerwise, Blake Lively’s gossip girl far eclipses Alexis Bledel’s Gilmore girl. So it’s unfortunate that, while the spunky actors seem willing to reprise their 2005 roles—the abandoned jock (Lively), the insecure brain (Ferrera), the punky loner (Tamblyn), the lovesick artist (Bledel)—this sequel only fitfully takes them to the private moments that made the first movie such an unlikely heartbreaker. Don’t laugh: Sisterhood has its fans, and not just weepie teens, but critics starved for serious representations of American girlhood. Call it a chick flick if you must.

College is the perfect place to extend their stories, but Lively is the only one given a sophisticated narrative and decent actors to play off, first on a Brown-sponsored Turkish archeological dig bonding with team leader Shohreh Aghdashloo, then in Alabama working out suicidal-mommy issues with estranged grandparent Blythe Danner. But c’mon: three other plots all related to boys or pregnancy scares? Much of this material comes from Ann Brashares’s YA books, but director Sanaa Hamri’s hand is heavier than that of original helmer Ken Kwapis, who knew how to let uncertain moments lie. A gleeful last act with all four girls in Greece feels like the worst kind of cop-out.