Sex and the City: Le film

I am a big fan of the show. I am one of those people who have seen every episode at least 4 times, and some of them around 10 times. Even so, I still watch the reruns, and I was really looking forward to the movie.

So, it is really upsetting that I have to give it such a bad review. I went to see it with the best of intentions. I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately the movie has nothing to do with the wittiness and character of the series. Even putting aside the wooden and/or exaggerated acting, you fail to recognize the characters who where transformed into caricatures, pathetic versions of themselves.

There were very very few lines that gave a glimpse of the old clever dialog, and they all got lost in a mass of cheesy lines about love and friendship that you even rarely anymore encounter in the corniest of Hollywood's chick flicks, and toiler humor that you only expect from movies like Harold and Kumar. OK, maybe the comparison to Harold and Kumar is a little unfair, but really I had never expected Sex and the City to rely on fart jokes for comic relief.

People comment that those who rate this movie badly are either men, or just not fans of the show. From my perspective the fans of the show should be the ones most disappointed by the travesty that was this film.

We grew to love the show because of its honesty towards sexual issues, its shocking but clever dialog, and its characters who, however unreal with their designer obsessions, uncontrollable spending and lack of real jobs, remained true to their personas regarding sex, relationships, commitment, independence.

The show was about sex. The movie is about love, and treats the subject from the weakest, corniest and most disappointing standpoint.

This movie is a fake Fendi. Dropping 15 designer names in one sentence, showing bulging men's underpants and orgasming at the sight of huge closets, Sex and the City does not make.

As for me, I will keep watching the reruns and pretend this movie never happened.

Let me preface this review by saying I have never seen any of the show or had any previous knowledge of this franchise. While this is not a film I would normally watch, my wife wanted to watch this and I was skeptical going in. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was easy to jump in, 10 years of storytelling missed, and still easily got invested in each character. With a simple love story plot, my only complaint is that it is dragged out and begins to feel like multiple TV episodes stitched together, rather than a full film. All of the actresses are very well into their character and the bond they have feels genuine and they make it a delightful time. Did it convince me to go back and catch up? No, but it was a fun 2 1/2 hours spent and can easily be enjoyed by fans and newbies.

...or at least try to be original?

Saying that "Sex and the City: The Movie" is just for the fans is unnecessary (like it was made for another audience, right?). Who else except die hard fans of the show will be crazy for this movie?

Is it predictable? Yes. Is it just a longer episode of the TV show? Yes. Is it funny? Depends. If you like the show, you'll laugh; if you don't, you won't. Simple as that.

It doesn't try or pretend to be art-house material or an Oscar contender (except for the costume design, of course), but it's definitely good entertainment and a pleasant couple of hours with buttery popcorn and a Red Bull. 7/10.

Girls love sex - especially when it comes packaged as, "big love of one's life." Who wouldn't? And 'The City' has nothing to do with stockbrokers. It's bright lights. Excitement. The girls' nights out. Successful, independent women. Expensive shoes. Designer label. Labels and love - the two big "l's". Big Apple. New York. City of Dreams. So is Sex and the City, the film version of an award-winning TV show, every girl's dream movie? The film – a short two and a half hours – successfully reprises the TV show format. A decade on in the lives of our characters and we follow them for another eventful year. Carrie now a successful book author - and sometimes contributor to Vogue. Says Kim Catrall (who plays Carrie's friend Samantha), "It was about women joining together as the new family, girlfriends sticking together through thick and thin." As a girl-bonding movie, it certainly works. On the way home, several hundred dresses to discuss, Manolo strappy sandals, and moral dilemmas like, if you have a secret that would hurt your best friend to know, should you 'fess up? Says, writer-producer-director Michael Patrick King, "Miranda's the sarcastic, sort of angry, one. Charlotte's the sweeter, sort of preppy one, the more traditional one. Samantha's the sexy, sort of power-hungry one. And then, there's Carrie, the indefinable one." Their TV personas are already developed and, unlike many TV-shows-made-into-movies, Sex and the City doesn't try to go overboard but develops existing characters and situations.

Although everything in the film is well-signposted, I don't want to give anything away. As with genre films, it's the small variations of plot that make it satisfying. A couple of scenes stand out for me. One is where Samantha covers her naked body with hand-made sushi as a Valentine's gift. Beautifully shot, it illustrates her outrageous sexual appetite in a moment that is genuinely artistic and more memorable than a bedroom full of dildos wrapped in cling-film. More clichéd, is the man next door having a slow-motion outdoor shower, but even that didn't seem out of place given Samantha's showy temperament and transfixed gaze.

The plot development where Miranda makes an unguarded comment which she is afraid to tell Carrie is well-handled. The restaurant scene where Miranda finally screws up the courage is believable and dramatic while still retaining its humour.

But I felt it would be unfair to review this film from a male-only point of view, so duly took my partner along. I tried to set the mood with Shiraz and Spanish tapas, casually asking what she thought of the TV series. "It's the ultimate sell-out!" she says. I was taken aback. I thought it was about strong, liberated women of today? "Yes, but their lives revolve around getting a man." Seen from that perspective, it is hardly the feminist frolic of fashion and feisty friendship. And of course, our whole film is obsessed with the idea of marriage. In a neat tables-turn – what Scarlett O'Hara might call giving men some of their own medicine – men are casually dehumanised. Either as sex-objects (for Samantha), or as provider (for Carrie, remarkably). The other two males (those stabled by Miranda and Charlotte) are insignificant and weak. Carrie's man is famously not given a name (recall how Célestine was reduced to an object in Buñuel's Diary of a Chambermaid by the old man who simply called her 'what he called all the maids'). Carrie is a successful author yet, when contemplating a new flat with her man, she lets him pick up the bill, "like he was picking up the check for coffee." The romantic dénouement is based on what would, without the happy Hollywood coincidences, be deemed stalking in real life.

The best part for me was seeing Jennifer Hudson, who plays Carrie's assistant Louise. Hudson also contributes a fine song for the film which adequately expresses the theme of, "Good men are like designer labels and it's hard to spot the knock-offs." Hudson is a fine actress in her own right, not just a one hit wonder who got an Oscar for Dreamgirls after failing to win American Idol. She exudes screen charisma. Every expression, every intonation, was a joy to behold. Although the clip from Meet Me in St Louis rather reminded me of what a really good movie looks like, Sex and the City, however enjoyable, isn't one. It's a remarkably pleasant way of spending two and a half hours, but the performances are largely pedestrian. Unlike Devil Wears Prada, it's about labels, not an appreciation of the design behind them. By being successfully chic and delightfully superficial, the characters distract us from the wedding bells goal and the way their lives really stereotype them. We never learn much about their work, or about them as people independent of a man's penis. It provides the dual fantasy of apparently liberated woman while retaining the old penchant for ball and chain.

"I want people leaving the movie theater feeling, 'all right, great, that was a lot!'" King says. "That was drinks, appetizer, main course, and dessert, dessert, dessert!" And, like most desserts, Sex and the City is ninety per cent sugar.

I thought, this is a sure-fire winner - the series was brilliant: funny, romantic, insightful, and we were left wanting more - ergo... great movie. What I got instead was sappy, uninspired writing; I actually rolled my eyes a couple of times, and I love chick flicks! These characters would never utter some of those lines. After developing such strong characters over the course of the series, someone fell asleep behind the wheel and completely short changed the viewers.

Also, the movie is messy, trying to cram way too much into the alloted time, ending up with shallow plots all the way through. The only character plot line I believed was Samantha's. I missed the men in this movie, someone sucked the very life out of them. And finally, Jennifer Hudson's role could be neatly snipped out of the movie without it making a difference. I love her, but the role as written is way too cliché'd for even a fine actor like herself to make any sense out of.

Saving graces: Kim Cattrall's performance and delivery, the fashion and the moments between the girls.