This could be the worst movie ever made. Certainly its the worst I've seen in a very long time.
Now, before I begin I have to say that I'm not a fan of the series to begin with. It had its moments, but as a lifelong resident of Manhattan I mostly blamed the series for the unbearable influx of wide-eyed moronic girls from all over the country who flocked to the city en masse, thinking that upon arrival their lives would instantly revolve around cosmopolitans, rich men and $1000 shoes, and who very quickly became insufferable basket cases once the reality of city life actually set in on them.
Of course, I saw this movie with my girlfriend, as my good deed for the week. What I was not prepared for was how horrible it actually was.
The first ten minutes contained more cliché, stinted dialog, corny jokes and general awkwardness than I had previously thought possible in such a short time frame. It was embarrassing. It also involved Liza Minelli. I thought it couldn't get worse, but oh did it ever.
Next came the foundation for the entire film, which was that the ladies were in a funk and needed to get away for a couple of weeks. The funny thing about that is how they all have impossibly great lives, especially by NYC standards. They live in massive apartments, have high-paying careers, plenty of money and for everyone but Samantha, loving husbands and families. And its not like there was some substantial existential crisis underpinning their dissatisfaction to legitimize their feelings and generate sympathy on behalf of the audience. It all amounted to 'Boohoooo we used to partyyyy all the time but now we're all grownups waaa pity us'. Literally, that was it. Sorry, I don't feel bad for you guys.
So Carrie starts a whole big fight with her husband because he doesn't feel like going out to some stupid party after working into the evening and providing her with a lifestyle that includes what appears to be a $15 million apartment, two luxury cars, an unlimited decorating budget, a truly massive closet with hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothes, enough leisure time to write her stupid books AND her old apartment to write them in. Then he had the NERVE to not buy her jewelry for their anniversary (she actually said that). It was completely effing nauseating.
The rest of the women's 'problems' were no better. Charlotte has kids who drive her crazy. Really groundbreaking stuff there. Especially since she too lives in a multimillion dollar apartment with a full time live-in nanny and housekeeper. Pathetic. Miranda has a new boss who doesn't like her very much, OBVIOUSLY because she's a woman, duh. There's no other reason for a boss to not like a subordinate other than their gender, clearly. And finally, Samantha is old and needs to take hormones for menopause now, stop the presses. Is your heart bleeding for them yet? No? You must hate women, you sexist.
Moving right along. Samantha somehow is a mega-PR agent at this point (in Times Square??), despite the fact that I've literally never seen her do any work resembling PR (and I know lots of PR people). She meets some sheik at a party who simply MUST have her work that imaginary PR magic on behalf of his new hotel, and as a perk of this great new account, conveniently gets the girls invited to Abu Dhabi. Hooray! Their dreary despair comes to an end as they're flown ultra-first-class to the glamorous 'new' middle-east, shuttled to the luxury hotel in individual Maybach limousines (one for each of them!) and given two weeks all-expenses-paid in the hotel's premier $22,000/night penthouse suite, because that is totally standard treatment for PR flacks. Naturally.
All is well in this paradise for like a week, until the icky middle-eastern customs of female oppression begin to rear their ugly head and Samantha is inevitably arrested for being a giant whore and having sex on the beach with some Dutch dude, at which point they're politely informed that Samantha's PR expertise would not be needed after all, and that they'd be personally responsible for another night of hotel charges unless they vacated the hotel in one hour. So now these four extremely wealthy women proceed to freak the hell out because if they don't hurry they may be liable for (gasp!) $5,500 each to cover the suite. Makes perfect sense to me too. Never mind that they're millionaires, particularly Carrie, whose couch alone in her living room is worth upwards of $30,000. Never mind that they could have also asked to be moved into regular rooms for the night so they could leave at a normal pace the next day. But on the other hand, if they had been logical, we wouldn't have been treated to a madcap scene of the girls packing and then inexplicably getting into trouble at the local bazaar (again related to Samantha's inability to keep her clothes on), followed by a quasi-insulting scene of burqa-clad women revealing designer clothes under their robes and reading a Susanne Sommers menopause book, for some reason.
Ultimately they make their way to the airport in a horrible little gypsy cab (because between the four of them they couldn't afford a limo of their own too?), and before you know it, they're off to America again. Oh and Carrie hooked up with her ex boyfriend at some point in there and told her husband about it for no good reason.
Predictably, they get home and everyone is as introspective as they're capable of (not very much at all), and they realize how wonderful their lives really are (no they don't). The end.
Now you don't need to see the movie. You're welcome.
Now, before I begin I have to say that I'm not a fan of the series to begin with. It had its moments, but as a lifelong resident of Manhattan I mostly blamed the series for the unbearable influx of wide-eyed moronic girls from all over the country who flocked to the city en masse, thinking that upon arrival their lives would instantly revolve around cosmopolitans, rich men and $1000 shoes, and who very quickly became insufferable basket cases once the reality of city life actually set in on them.
Of course, I saw this movie with my girlfriend, as my good deed for the week. What I was not prepared for was how horrible it actually was.
The first ten minutes contained more cliché, stinted dialog, corny jokes and general awkwardness than I had previously thought possible in such a short time frame. It was embarrassing. It also involved Liza Minelli. I thought it couldn't get worse, but oh did it ever.
Next came the foundation for the entire film, which was that the ladies were in a funk and needed to get away for a couple of weeks. The funny thing about that is how they all have impossibly great lives, especially by NYC standards. They live in massive apartments, have high-paying careers, plenty of money and for everyone but Samantha, loving husbands and families. And its not like there was some substantial existential crisis underpinning their dissatisfaction to legitimize their feelings and generate sympathy on behalf of the audience. It all amounted to 'Boohoooo we used to partyyyy all the time but now we're all grownups waaa pity us'. Literally, that was it. Sorry, I don't feel bad for you guys.
So Carrie starts a whole big fight with her husband because he doesn't feel like going out to some stupid party after working into the evening and providing her with a lifestyle that includes what appears to be a $15 million apartment, two luxury cars, an unlimited decorating budget, a truly massive closet with hundreds of thousands of dollars in clothes, enough leisure time to write her stupid books AND her old apartment to write them in. Then he had the NERVE to not buy her jewelry for their anniversary (she actually said that). It was completely effing nauseating.
The rest of the women's 'problems' were no better. Charlotte has kids who drive her crazy. Really groundbreaking stuff there. Especially since she too lives in a multimillion dollar apartment with a full time live-in nanny and housekeeper. Pathetic. Miranda has a new boss who doesn't like her very much, OBVIOUSLY because she's a woman, duh. There's no other reason for a boss to not like a subordinate other than their gender, clearly. And finally, Samantha is old and needs to take hormones for menopause now, stop the presses. Is your heart bleeding for them yet? No? You must hate women, you sexist.
Moving right along. Samantha somehow is a mega-PR agent at this point (in Times Square??), despite the fact that I've literally never seen her do any work resembling PR (and I know lots of PR people). She meets some sheik at a party who simply MUST have her work that imaginary PR magic on behalf of his new hotel, and as a perk of this great new account, conveniently gets the girls invited to Abu Dhabi. Hooray! Their dreary despair comes to an end as they're flown ultra-first-class to the glamorous 'new' middle-east, shuttled to the luxury hotel in individual Maybach limousines (one for each of them!) and given two weeks all-expenses-paid in the hotel's premier $22,000/night penthouse suite, because that is totally standard treatment for PR flacks. Naturally.
All is well in this paradise for like a week, until the icky middle-eastern customs of female oppression begin to rear their ugly head and Samantha is inevitably arrested for being a giant whore and having sex on the beach with some Dutch dude, at which point they're politely informed that Samantha's PR expertise would not be needed after all, and that they'd be personally responsible for another night of hotel charges unless they vacated the hotel in one hour. So now these four extremely wealthy women proceed to freak the hell out because if they don't hurry they may be liable for (gasp!) $5,500 each to cover the suite. Makes perfect sense to me too. Never mind that they're millionaires, particularly Carrie, whose couch alone in her living room is worth upwards of $30,000. Never mind that they could have also asked to be moved into regular rooms for the night so they could leave at a normal pace the next day. But on the other hand, if they had been logical, we wouldn't have been treated to a madcap scene of the girls packing and then inexplicably getting into trouble at the local bazaar (again related to Samantha's inability to keep her clothes on), followed by a quasi-insulting scene of burqa-clad women revealing designer clothes under their robes and reading a Susanne Sommers menopause book, for some reason.
Ultimately they make their way to the airport in a horrible little gypsy cab (because between the four of them they couldn't afford a limo of their own too?), and before you know it, they're off to America again. Oh and Carrie hooked up with her ex boyfriend at some point in there and told her husband about it for no good reason.
Predictably, they get home and everyone is as introspective as they're capable of (not very much at all), and they realize how wonderful their lives really are (no they don't). The end.
Now you don't need to see the movie. You're welcome.