Off to Greece we go—again. What a summer we’re having! The cinematography for Sisterhood is superior to that of Mamma Mia!, or for that matter, superior to that of the first film in this surprised-to-be-its-own-franchise set of flicks. In fact, there’s every reason to do a third movie. The young actors are mint, maturing well. They are as engaging as all get out. Especially young America Ferrara, who masterfully belted out Shakespearean lines in a few scenes, as her character spends the summer in an upstate theatre production.

The other female roles continue on their suggested paths from the first movie. The soccer star deviates by heading to Turkey as an intern at a dig under Professor Nasrin Mahani, portrayed by the beautiful Shohreh Aghdashroo (recurring role in TV’s 24, Academy Award nominated best supporting actress for House of Sand & Fog). The goth girl is less gothic, in and out of love. The girl that is our reason to get to Greece is far less interesting a character.

This is the classic disconnect producers make with their potential audience. They misjudge our interest and willingness to shell out bucks to see our favorite stories brought to the big screen. Harry Potter is a classic example. As Rowlings matured as a writer, her stories increasingly complex, the books ballooned into individual treatises on the human condition. To make a movie out of Book I was not a problem. By Book III, making one movie from its myriad subplots and characters was near impossible. They did not learn their lesson, and pushed on with Book IV as one movie, leaving lots of messy loose ends and disaffected fans.

‘Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’, as four books, is a set of good reads. To jam three of these books into this movie sequel was utter loopiness on the part of the filmmakers. First, why walk away from another movie buck? Second, why cram too much into Sisterhood 2…if you aren’t sure you’re going to make a third movie, OK. But just do what you can, do it right and move on. Do it right.

We find the girls preparing for another summer (which summer? Ah well). Fresh out of school for summer break, each has drifted away ever so slightly from the others, without any of them actually stating the obvious. America Ferrara’s character Carmen is off to Vermont as a backstage hand at camp, at the urging of a fellow classmate, Julia, who plays one of those friends who eliminates the need for enemies (well executed by Rachel Nichols). Actually, Carmen goes because she thinks her four Traveling Pants friends don’t have her in their summer plans.

The veteran lead actor takes an interest in her and hoodwinks her into the audition. Tom Wisdom plays an ‘older’ actor (he’s 35) who sees the potential in Carmen. I see the potential in him and don’t understand why he hasn’t caught a break in Hollywood. He’s a doll baby. Through this scripting device, we get to watch Ferrara get the part and take a stab at Shakespeare, which is reason enough to catch this movie just to see TV’s Ugly Betty romp through high brow theatre. She also has some fine scenes where she interacts from afar with her filmic Mom (Rachel Ticotin) who is giving birth prematurely to her new baby brother. Carmen stumbles through opening night too far from home to be there for her Mom. All in all, Ferrara does an outstanding job.

Our goth chick is home, though, and is there for Carmen’s Mom, staying by her through the delivery. Tibby is essentially my favorite character of the four. Played masterfully by Amber Tamblyn, she takes Tibby through a difficult set of fears, doubts and social ineptitudes. Summer for Tibby is clerking at a movie rental shop in town.

All her friends are off to do exciting things, and there Tibby is, alone with her script re-writing. Her boyfriend, Leonardo Nam’s heartfelt Brian, is shocked yet supportive of Tibby’s bewilderment and fears. They are the most believable characters of the film and a pleasure to watch work.

Alexis Bledel is dazzling to look at, even in broad daylight, visibly lacking makeup. She is a looker. Understandably, her character Lena is combing guys out of her hair. Lena is a lovely Greek name, however Bledel doesn’t look so Greek. Lena’s Grandmother (Maria Konstadarou) looks Greek, maybe enough for the both of them.

Bledel falls a bit shy of believable, though the scripting is partly to blame. Her character must simply attend art classes and then go to Greece towards the end of summer. A tough life, but someone has to do it, as they say. She also must mend her broken heart for the Greek boy Kostas she lost since Sisterhood 1. Michael Rady portrays this Greek lover whose heart healed much faster than Lena’s, as he is married by Sisterhood 2. This leaves most of the movie for Lena to be footloose and free to entertain ideas of other guys.

For us, we get to watch relative newcomer stunning Jesse Williams II in a just barely more than cameo role. Some solace—he is in an upcoming film with Wesley Snipes, Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, and Ellen Barkin called Brooklyn’s Finest, which is due out next year if Snipes’ personal life doesn’t mess that up. For Sisterhood 2 Williams plays Leo, an astonishingly gorgeous fellow art student who also poses for the nude drawing class Lena is taking. Like I said, this girl has a tough summer.

Finally, what of Bridget, our fourth member of the Traveling Pants cult? Blake Lively should be looking at her second season of Gossip Girl on television and possibly on her way in her career. At twenty, she has graduated from high school, after her hiatus to do Sisterhood 1. She is the youngest of the four, and yet does a good job, given the script’s minor attention to the details of her character. We learn more about her Mom, lost several years previous to the devastations of a personality ultimately choosing suicide.

Bridget must come to terms with this tragedy, moving through her life in the ghostly presence of her absentee father who blames himself for the suicide (Ernie Lively, yup, her real life Dad). Bridget goes to a Turkish archaeological dig as a lark, and because it isn’t obvious anyone cares what she does anyway.

Going to a dig seemed fun on the face of it, as we get some great location shots and a good depiction of an archaeological site. So much so, I audibly gasped when Bridget pulls a skull from the matrix after having brushed away only enough soil to see the teeth and jawbone. That is simply not done on a real dig. Only Brendan Fraser, Angelina Jolie and Harrison Ford can destroy treasures from the past without raising my ire. Everyone else must act as if they have training and responsibly photograph, draw, measure and define the artifact in situ. I mean, really.

This activity not being her calling, Bridget chooses to find her long lost grandmother. The day she left home for Turkey, she found in the basement a bundle of letters from Greta, her Gramma. Dad had hidden them, which left Bridget’s goodbye marred by anger. This side trip to find Gramma shaped up into a wonderful vignette with Blythe Danner. It was unfortunate that it is truncated by real time movie length concerns. We all are left wanting more of Danner, as we were with Williams, Wisdom and Nichols. These characters were shaping up enough to want to know what happened with them. This lack of follow-through is where the filmmakers should have thought, “Maybe we have another film in all of this mashup?”

The Traveling Pants? Well, yes, they get to travel around the world again. Mostly, they get ignored, worn in the snow, or must act as co-conspirator in transporting soil from Turkey to America in a FedEx package. I told you Bridget was very irresponsible. The pants are hippie cool and magical, if nothing else than because they fit Lively’s 5’8” frame and Ferrara’s 5’1” body. Of course the pants get to go to Greece, as do we. Yay.