The casting for the first movie took the best young ladies working on TV and teamed them up in a crazy chemistry experiment -- will they all want to be the "star" and so this won't work at all? Will none of them shine through because all of them are so good? Will one of them overshadow all the others?

It was serendipity, though, as everything about it worked: The girls were all fantastic, together and apart (and that's what's great about these movies: They keep the girls apart long enough that you really cherish the moments they're together), all of them having a story with weight that they could really sink their teeth into.

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is a little less... everything. It picks up several years after the first movie left off, with the girls having completed their first year in college. Carmen (America Ferrera) is at Yale working backstage in the theater department, but she's so ready to go home for the summer. Lena (Alexis Bledel) is at RISD studying to be an artist, with plans to take a summer class. Tibby (Amber Tamblyn) is going to NYU film school, and she has to work on an incomplete for the summer. Bridgette (Blake Lively) is on a soccer scholarship, and about to spend her summer on an archaeological dig in Turkey.

It's a fine start, but from there the story gets really uneven. Carmen apparently is the only one planning to go home, so she quickly changes plans and heads to Vermont to work on a play. Apparently, without realizing it, she wants to act. And she's interested in one of the actors. Lena has boy troubles of her own, but a new boy artist is interested in her. Tibby also has boy problems. Bridgette -- boy crazy in the first movie -- apparently is over boys, as her biggest problem is trying to escape from the crazy that is Shoreh Agdashloo and her scary voice. Okay, maybe that was just me. Bridgette actually is looking for a way to come to terms with her mother's death.

The stories are all uneven and each one has moments that are rushed through or glossed over completely. You'll leave the theater and ask yourself at least one question about each girl's story that there is no way for you to answer with the information given in the film. That's a big problem, and one that didn't plague the first one at all.

What this film has going for it, then, is the casting. The girls are still charming and adorable and often very funny. This time, Amber Tamblyn is the real star. She brings the comedy and several moments that will probably choke you up. Without her, the movie really would be a bore -- and clocking in at almost two hours, a very long bore, the worst kind.

This movie is worth watching if only for the girls, who all really are terrific actors. I also like to think they're all grounded and sane and that none of them is headed toward rehab or head-shaving or husband-stealing anytime soon.

That said, it's sort of insulting that the filmmakers knew how good they got it the first time around, casting-wise, and are just coasting this time, without really bringing the writing or stories. If they keep heading this direction, the third movie will involve the girls just sitting in a circle passing the pants around, and we'll be expected to stay interested simply because the four are on-screen. I'd like to ask that the producers bring a little more next time around, if there is a next time after this one, which simply cannot bring the kind of box office success the first one did.

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