Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Two and a half hours. Process that for a moment. Two and one half hours. Not 90 minutes. Not two hours. Two and a half hours. Now, with that firmly in mind, process this. Imagine, if you will, a Rob Schneider movie, a Ben Stiller movie and an Adam Sandler movie teaming up and slipping Rohypnol to the BRATZ movie, pulling a train on her sorry, barely legal ass, then leaving the unfortunate spawn of that unholy union in the LA sun for 40 years until it rotted and leathered to the point that it was attractive only to gay men and other women. That’s the Sex and the City movie.
TWO AND A HALF HOURS.
Look, before you start with the chorus of “That movie wasn’t for you” remember this: I enjoy a good chick flick. But this wasn’t good; not by any stretch of the imagination. This was a dick and fart joke movie for women. Make no mistake, the humor in this is as crass and base as anything the boys’ movies have to offer. Someone shits themselves. There’s a close up of some forty-year-old pubic hair poking out of both sides of a swimsuit. A four year old utters the word SEX to the amusement and shock of all present in the room. A Dog repeatedly humps pillows. Sound familiar? I spent a goodly portion of this film wondering when the Farrelly Brothers had decided to cut their balls off and develop a fondness for Prada.
Two and a half god damned hours.
Look, at its root, this thing is a comedy. And no comedy, no matter how funny, can truly sustain its vibe for two and a half hours, especially when it is gunning for laughs this low in the gutter. Add to that the fact that it is extraordinarily light on plot to begin with and you might understand why I was beginning to crave the cold taste of steel from the barrel of a colt about 45 minutes in. It isn’t so much a movie as it is a string of television episodes woven together. Every problem has an easy solution. Worse yet, those problems really aren’t actually problems. On the contrary, Sex and the City has set out to blaze an entirely new trail. One that leads toward the creation of the Anti-RomCom.
Now, that’s not to say that if you hate RomComs this might in any way appeal to you. No. You know how in a romantic comedy, the big second act kicker somehow involves one of the characters screwing up, then realizing how they screwed up only to seek out and win back the love of the person they screwed up with? Yeah. It’s kind of the plot of almost every single one of those fucking things. And, yeah. It’s also kinda why we love them. Well, in Sex and the City we see the movie from the other point of view. The guys still manage to fuck things up – but rather than watching them realize that and try to make amends – we instead watch the bitter, heartbroken women swim in an endless sea of self pity for TWO AND A HALF FUCKING HOURS while, somewhere offscreen, those male characters are trying to make amends, only to find their apologies rebuffed. You see, in Sex and the City it isn’t about the big, romantic solution. It’s about women getting over their shit, realizing how they fucked up and then saying “Okay, I’ll take you back now.” And while I’ll admit that there’s more truth to these solutions than most people would like to admit, they do not make for entertaining stories.
In fact, it only seems to reinforce what I never liked about Sex and the City to begin with. They’re not flirty and single because it’s so hard to find a good man. It’s because they’re all completely self-obsessed, neurotic, high maintenance divas. And I found each and every one of them thoroughly unlikable. There’s a workaholic neglectful wife who commits the sin of all marital sins – uttering the phrase “Would you please finish.” There’s the oversexed nymphomaniac who is in a long-term relationship with the perfect guy, but is getting bored because she wants to bang other people. Oh, and no one’s ever mentioned the swinger lifestyle to her, despite her living in LA. And being in the movie business. Then there’s the girl who used to be the most neurotic of them all, but now has the perfect life. Married, kids and utterly nothing to do in this movie. Then there’s our glib narrator, the woman who makes a living writing about the adventures of the other three. And while the narration might have worked as a tool to string together stories in an episodic format in the show, her incessant droning will make you want to but your shoe through the screen time and again.
FOR TWO AND A HALF MIND NUMBING HOURS.
But I just couldn’t get over how much this shared in common with BRATZ: the Movie. Montage after montage after montage with each and every problem finding a solution by the fabulously dressed four getting together, squee-ing in a pitch that will deafen dogs and neuter most of the males in the audience, and realizing that friendship will get you through any bout of rampant self-absorption. Oh, so this is what happens when you leave Bratz dolls in the sun too long. I’m not gonna get on the consumerism trip. Not here. Not with the crowd that will drop a grand on a mint condition Revenge of the Jedi poster and consider it an investment in the future. A COOL investment in the future. Come on, I’ve been to a sci-fi convention. And once you’ve stood in the dealer room and pondered dropping $45 on the Battlestar Galactica Boardgame you had when you were five years old, you can’t really fault a woman for getting excited about a $600 pair of purple fuzzy pumps that look like they should come with their own stripper pole. I mean, who the fuck am I to judge? But Christ in a bucket people, did we need so many montages of them doing it? For two and a…you get the picture.
I will say this - the movie did take me back. 8 Years in fact. May, 1999. The screen goes black and words fade in. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. The crowd loses its fucking mind. Then they watch Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Outside, after the movie, while several people bitch about the utter crappiness of the film, others embarrassingly say “Come ooooooooooon. I Liiiiiiked it.” Then they accused the detractors of not being fans. They didn’t get it. The movie didn’t suck, you just weren’t the right audience for it. Well, instead of A long time ago…, it was a piano tinkle. The familiar opening of the television series. I’ve read a number of flabbergasted critics try to explain the crowd reactions as devotional or bordering on the religious. But that’s only because they’ve never had a Trekee try to explain to them the redeeming qualities of Star Trek: Insurrection. Once you’ve been down that road, you can see exactly what this is.
Will the fans love it? Yeah, probably. This is an event film and yeah, I can totally get that. But it ain’t for anyone else. I pity any man who walks into this with his girl thinking he is in for just the usual hour and a half ass pounding only to discover that instead he’s entered a two and a half hour oubliette from which there is no escape. Ladies, you want to get your man to do something wholly unpleasant like spending a day with your mother or cleaning the rain gutters? Offer this as an alternative. He’ll do it. Trust me, he’ll do it.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
Wait a second. I think the plot of this was taken from an old D&D module.
I think it was called INTO THE PIT OF THE SHRILL HARPIES.
