Sex and the City: The Movie

Starring: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon
Directed by: Michael Patrick King (TV’s “Sex and the City”)
Written by: Michael Patrick King (TV’s “Sex and the City”)

After keeping women everywhere at bay for four years since the HBO series came to an end, everyone’s favorite New York City girls are back with more emotional issues than before in the film version of “Sex and the City.”

Where the TV series was charming, witty, and as light as yogurt, “Sex” at the cinema can wear you down like a triple cheeseburger sitting in your small intestine. Unless you are an estrogen-filled super fan who would maim their girlfriends over a designer handbag, skip the martinis and instead buy the $200 pink felt-covered collector’s giftset. At least then you can remember the ladies as they were in those fabulous six TV seasons. Although the names and problems basically stay the same, there is less spirit and story spread over the movie’s 135-minute mini-marathon.

In the film, the always lovable and neurotic Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) reunites with hopeless romantic Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), sexualized cougar Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall), and practical redhead Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon) for her extravagant wedding to Mr. Big (Chris Noth).

But when Big gets cold feet (or whatever you would call what happens during those ridiculous scenes where he doesn’t show up for the wedding), the ladies must lean on each other for support as each of them (with the exception of Charlotte whose life is picture perfect) find themselves facing a new set of relationship problems.

Written and directed by TV series regular Michael Patrick King, “Sex in the City,” when compared to the show, lacks thematically. It’s not the length the film runs that is bothersome. It’s that King can’t seem to find anything to fill the space with other than scenes of self-pity. When the girls do finally come around and realize they’re supposed to be having fun, it’s far too late to save any of them.

King simply flattens the characters instead of broadening them for the big screen. All the girls are the same, which might be great for avid fans, but bland for others who were hoping for more from the screenplay. It’s been four years and the foursome hasn’t changed in the slightest. That might be nice to hear for Manolo Blahnik lovers but not for women who like their female empowering heroes built with a little less desperation.