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Sex and the City

Not as great nor as grueling as you might expect

By Matt Pais

Metromix
May 29, 2008

Critic's Rating:

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After six seasons on HBO, style-hound Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker) reunited with on-again/off-again guy Big (Chris Noth); loudmouth/breast cancer survivor Samantha (Kim Cattrall) regained her sex drive, post-chemo; good-girl Charlotte (Kristin Davis) was on track to adopt a baby from China; and know-it-all Miranda (Cynthia Nixon) was happily married and raising a son. Now, the gals are back and ready to face potential marriages, potential babies, potential breakups and a whole lot of other emotional forks in the road you probably don't want ruined for you.
 
Big question: Can the mega-popular quartet's leap to the big screen please fans of the show and, possibly, change the minds of those who can't stand that Latin-flavored theme music?
 
Catch it: Yes, you will enjoy "Sex and the City"—probably more so if you call things "fabulous" and have more pairs of shoes than you have fingers. (If you don't, I can confirm, you will not die.) While its lessons about communication won't rewrite any relationship handbooks, the film's emphasis on raw emotion feels genuine, more so when it's raging, crying and laughing than when it's grinning over how cute it is to say, "pudding in her Prada."
 
Skip it: If you don't want to hear about the importance of huge closets or the thrill Carrie feels when her new assistant (Jennifer Hudson) tells her about "Bag, Borrow and Steal," which is like "a Netflix for purses." Fortunately, this is all still less painful than "Made of Honor."
 
Bottom line: Series devotees may wish the movie—clocking in at a long, sluggish 142 minutes—throbbed and strutted a bit more. And for the sake of pillows and stuffed animals everywhere, enough with the shots of Samantha's dog humping stuff. There's no denying that "Sex and the City" stays true to its roots; it's shamelessly fashion-centric, hopelessly sentimental and just a simple tale about love that's not always easy and friendship that never goes away.
 
Bonus: Miranda learns the hard way about a sentence that should never be uttered in the bedroom: "Let's just get it over with." Best to save that for dentist appointments and tax returns.

Video: Watch the review of 'Sex and the City'

What do you think of 'Sex and the City'? Email me: mpais@tribune.com

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