Movie Review: Sex and the City (2008)

This travesty of character and plot development obliterates any chance I would or could call Sex and the City a film instead of a TV movie with really good distribution. Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) spends the entire TV movie trying to get married to Big (Chris Noth). Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) spends the entire TV movie trying to stay married to Steve (David Eigenberg). Samantha (Kim Cattrall) spends the entire TV movie trying to get laid. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) spends the entire TV movie, er, uhm, hmm, well, with nice hair. All the designers of New York masturbate all over the audience (aren’t we lucky).

The writer and director, Michael Patrick King, didn’t bother to make any of the plots run smoothly through the entire movie. Instead, he lumped four episodes together, but took out the theme song and credits, figuring no one would notice. And even though there is a somewhat lengthy introduction at the beginning of the movie, this enhanced TV movie absolutely requires that the watcher has seen the HBO show Sex and the City, is familiar with the characters and the events in their lives. The shoddy writing makes a synopsis nearly impossible.

Now I like a pretty dress and shoes like the next girl but I would never consider spending millions of dollars on a movie slated to come out in the summer blockbuster season to try to get the audience to worship at the altar of designer shoes. As much as Michael Patrick King wants shoes to be a character or even a plot driver, they aren’t. Am I the only person in the world who thinks a two foot flower on a five foot woman makes her look a little insane? It seems I am alone in the feeling that sleeves should not be wider than the woman. Is it possible that douche-baggery can be transferred to Sex and the City? I think so.

And unless hair dye counts, there is absolutely no character development in Sex and the City. After spending two and a half hours of my life with these characters, I didn’t gain a single insight into the girls I didn’t already know because the point of the movie is nothing changes. The only character who does anything interesting is Steve, Miranda’s husband. Too bad his screen time comes to a whopping 15 minutes all together.

Getting past the blatant fashion squeeze, Sex and the City is a jumble of failed attempts at humor. It jumped the shark when a fart joke lasts a solid three minutes and eventually saves the day. Then it turned right around, got back into line and jumped it again when a character’s weight causes an entire party to take notice. Who knew that such low-brow slapstick humor had a place in a chick flick? The whirring and whizzing past my head deafened me as Sex and the City went through an entire tank of gas leaping over selected marine life.

Out of it all, there is but one cute scene where the girls start to talk about sex using the word “coloring” as a euphemism. The conversation goes on for some time and is, quite literally, the most entertaining part of the movie.

In the end, I would give anything to get back the time I wasted on this glorified TV movie. I could have actually had sex in the city. I could have bought some shoes. I am considering suing Michael Patrick King to make him build me a time machine, test it on monkeys and little furry bunnies, go back in time to May 28, 2008 at 6:45pm at the Kabuki Theater in San Francisco and prevent me from ever seeing Sex and the City.