This is a film designed to drag women to the cinema, funded by a barrage of product placement and written by and starring people who haven't found similar success since the series finished. In fact, you get the feeling it was originally intended as a mini-series reunion - given that the plot feels satisfyingly wrapped up after 45 minutes, until you notice it has two hours left in the running time. Indeed, the rest of the film can be neatly divided into 45-minute segments like watching the series back-to-back, only with less-grainy cinematography.
As ever, the four leads and their respective guest stars are all talented actors, unfortunately, they have nothing to do. After seven years of the show, they could act these characters in their sleep, and not one of them is developed. Kim Cattrall's Samantha actually reverts to type after having settled down in the show. Women often praise "chick"-media as being based on real-world situations and true-to-life characters; well I can tell you that I've seen giant CGI robots who behave in a more plausible way than these women. Every single sub-plot in the film could have been resolved in thirty seconds if the characters hadn't refused to discuss their respective problems for six months (actually, maybe it is a realistic depiction of women...), the main purpose of this of course, being to stretch a TV episode plot out to nearly three hours, which is necessary as the format is completely unsuited to cinema.
There are some good moments and a couple of laughs in the film - like a blink-and-miss shot of SJP's Carrie discretely moving her book to the front of a shop display - but not nearly enough to keep you interested for over two and a half hours. Say that's a man's view if you like, but my fiancee is a huge fan of the series and very nearly gave up on the film after twenty minutes. You can't get much more damning than that.
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