Don’t look for too much of consequence in “Sex and the City 2."

Writer/director Michael Patrick King has said the idea was for this to be a romp, a bit of an antidote to the more serious first film.

Ultimately, though, it’s not a ramp. In fact, it’s not much of anything.

What it is: Cool outfits, an exotic trip, a few half-hearted plotlines.

Oh, and Liza Minnelli belting out “Single Ladies” during a wedding reception.

I love movies that are good escapist fare — the operative word being “good.” The writing in “Sex and the City 2” is tone-deaf, in both how it treats grown women and everyone in the Middle East.

Worse than that, it’s simply not clever. It doesn’t even bother to give the actresses some fun one-liners.

Carrie, Charlotte, Miranda and Samantha deserve better than that.

It’s not that the set-up doesn’t have promise; it does. Each of the quartet is facing personal drama. Carrie frets that Big and she are sagging into marital dullness (although the script has Carrie being such a pill to Big that you can hardly blame him for wanting to watch TV rather than spend time with her). Charlotte feels overwhelmed by motherhood, crying over the fact that her baby is crying all the time. Miranda’s got work issues. Samantha is battling menopause with every pill and herb at her disposal.

So. What to do when the going gets tough? Get going to the Middle East. Or something like that. Samantha is invited to Abu Dhabi for work, so all four of them head there for a vacation, living it up in a suite the size of Rhode Island.

They shop, they sip cocktails, they ride camels.

If you’ve read anything about this movie, you know that then Aidan shows up. And Carrie acts like a teenager with low self-esteem. They kiss, she feels guilty, she confesses to Big.

Spoiler alert: After Carrie tells Big she kissed Aidan, Big BUYS HER A RING! What! I know! Doesn’t the woman usually get a ring when the HUBBY cheats?

That’s the only thing about this movie that you’ll ponder after you leave the theater. The rest of it evaporates like a disappointing mirage.

Well, maybe "Sex and the City 3" will be more fun and more substantive.

What did you think of “Sex and the City 2”?