Anthony's Film Review - Sex and the City (2008)

The Sex and the City movie pretty much bored me all the way through...

Let me begin by saying that I am definitely the wrong person to review this movie. I never watched Sex and the City when it aired on HBO from 1998 to 2004. Even when a friend of mine laughed while watching episodes of the show, I couldn't figure out what the appeal was. Now, I'm not dismissing the show as a waste of time, because I haven't watched the show at all. I'm sure the show has some things going for it, given that many people have watched the show and that it won plenty of Emmy awards. Still, if you want a review of the Sex and the City movie from someone who is very familiar with the show, skip this review. Everything you are about to read reflects the perspective of a guy who has never watched the show. (As for why I even bothered to see and review this movie, this is one of those times where I had picked a random movie and vowed to watch whatever came up.)

Rather than provide an introductory overview of Sex and the City, let me just list the four main characters: Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), Charlotte York (Kristin Davis), Miranda Hobbes (Cynthia Nixon), and Samantha Jones (Kim Cattrall). The only other character to mention is Carrie's love interest, a man whom she refers to as Mr. Big (played by Chris Noth). The main thing that happens in this movie is that Carrie and Mr. Big decide to get married. Other things do happen in the movie as well. In fact, there are perhaps too many other things that happen, so that the movie about the relationship between Carrie and Big is stretched out to a length of two-and-a-half hours.

As a result, you have a movie that has different things happening. Carrie and Big get a new apartment, which is nice except for a closet that is too small for Carrie. Carrie and her friends go to a jewelry auction. Carrie models in different wedding dresses. Miranda has an awkward sex moment when her man, in the middle of the action, requests a position change, which kills the excitement. The women discuss their sex lives over a meal. Samantha, dissatisfied with her sex life, finds herself enjoying voyeurism when she witnesses a couple having sex. Basically, the first half of the movie moves randomly, not coherently, which was one reason I was uninterested in the movie.

To a certain extent, the second half of the movie doesn't move as randomly. It starts after a disastrous end to Carrie's wedding, when Big doesn't show up for it. Carrie is devastated, and it takes a vacation in Mexico with her friends to restore her emotionally. After that, a couple more unrelated events, like Samantha going shopping to make up for her lack of a sex life and Charlotte going trick-or-treating for Halloween. Basically, the second half of the movie is not too different from the first half, so that my level of interest in the movie barely changed.

Now that I've seen the movie, I can say that I understand how people love Sex and the City for its portrayal of things that appeal to women and for the humorous dialogue. That's not to say I've become a new fan. Given that I'm not really part of the target audience and that my taste in humor tends to be the laugh-out-loud kind, I can't say I enjoyed the movie all that much. It's not so much the quality of the film, though I didn't think it needed to be over two hours long. I was simply bored all the way through. There were few moments where I smiled, and they were definitely not enough for me to rate the movie positively. Again, I'm just not part of the target audience who is deeply interested in things like fashion, shopping, weddings, relationship issues, and friendship between women.

Anthony's Rating:

For more information about Sex and the City, visit the Internet Movie Database.