Sex and the City: The Movie

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In adapting one of the most popular series in the history of TV, writer-director Michael Patrick King had two choices: he could either make a movie or an extended episode. Happily for fans, King opted for the latter, but unfortunately Sex And The City suffers the same fate The Simpsons did - a plot stretched to breaking point (148 minutes? Come on). Having tied everything up nicely in the last episode of the series, King goes about tearing all that down in the opening half hour only to build it all back up again: Carrie (Parker) and Big AKA John James Preston (Chris Noth) are to be married, but it doesn't go according to plan; Miranda (Nixon) and Steve (a haggard-looking David Eigenberg) have serious relationship trouble, Samantha (Cattrall) moves to LA but gets bored with Smith (Jason Lewis) and turns her attention to her saucy neighbour, while nothing really happens to Charlotte (Davis) at all. Once that set-up is done, nothing happens for a good hour. Oh, Carrie employs an assistant (a competent Jennifer Hudson) but that's about it. The series was always about the girls, the fashion, the chitchat and Manhattan, but the movie isn't in love with New York the way the series was, a series that gave Woody Allen's love letter Manhattan a run for its money. Ditto the guys: Big, Mike, Smith and Harry were an important element in the last series but the movie sees the guys sidelined and with them goes the romance. Sex And The City gives fans exactly what they want - more - but the snappy dialogue (Carrie's trademark quips are AWOL), the sassiness and the 'edge' the series enjoyed are diluted here. Even the famous opening theme music is dumped. Fans will enjoy it, though, and that's all that counts.