Sex and the City (2008)

Before talking about the film itself, some understanding of the HBO series is required. There is not a hope in hell that this film could stand on its own. When the TV show was good, it was as good as anything on TV, but when it was bad, it was as bad as anything.

In the good, I classify the moments that made me think, and in the series' early years, I thought a lot. But as the series wound down its sixth and final season, it had changed. It had gone from the story of four relationship anti-heroes to a soap opera. Charlotte ran out of storyline after Season 3, when she left Trey and married Harry. The will-they-or-won't-they Carrie-and-Big story wore out well before the series ended. Even sexaholic Samantha settled down in the end, surviving a brush with breast cancer and moving in with her boy toy. The only storyline that was still compelling, in the end, was Miranda and Steve, in my opinion, because it was the most honest. It kind of stole the series away from now-Executive Producer Carrie Bradshaw... I mean, Sarah Jessica Parker...

So, what's left in the movie? Obviously, wedding bells for Carrie and Big. Charlotte and Harry have given up on conceiving, but there might be a surprise in the works; Steve breaches Miranda's trust and puts their marriage on the rocks; and Samantha is exiled to California with her lover Smith Jerrod, whose acting career is taking off.

Other than the Miranda-and-Steve storyline, the film gives fans more of the same sap from the final seasons, with none of the spunk the early episodes provided. At a butt-numbing two-and-a-half hours long, you'd expect more than Charlotte's dilemma of whether or not to run while she's pregnant... or yet another commitment-phobic Carrie and Big meltdown... or several minutes of shrieking hellos each of the many times Samantha returns to New York...

Broken into half-hours, you could consider the film a short-season story arc, like five bonus episodes; as a feature film, however, it's hard to get through in one sitting. It effectively closes the loop on the story that came to dominate the series, but with that focus, the richness of the gals' contrasting sex lives is completely lost.

Then again, as one mega-fan interviewed before the premiere of the reportedly worse second SatC film put it, "Of course I'm happy. I get to see all my friends again!" My girlfriend maintains that films like this shouldn't even be reviiewed, because they aren't meant to be treated as equals. They're cash-ins for the fans to get excited about, and watch communally, critics be damned. To a point, I agree... but if you're paying the same price to see this as you would any other movie, it should be as good as what you would've spent the money on instead. It's not. A shorter, less-indulgent film would've been better, but Sex and the City wasn't talking to the average moviegoer. This film is strictly for the fans.