Sexual frustration | The guy says: 'Sex' lacks the punch found in the series

By: Kevin Alexander

Posted: 6/3/08

Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte and Samantha - to many women, they're bigger than John, Paul, George and Ringo and it shows: The landmark HBO series opened up the weekend with the largest banking in women's movie history.

I've seen every episode of Sex and the City, all six seasons of it. I enjoyed the series immensely for its cutting-edge take on social and romantic issues pertaining to the fairer sex and - all right, I'm not fooling anyone - I bought the box set for my girlfriend and she repaid me by making me sit down and watch every minute of it. Just in case she's reading: Love you babe.

It was a good hurt though. I eventually got into the characters and I respected how "Sex" dealt with the well-documented conflict between Mars and Venus. It's not the man-hating and insipid pillow talk that a lot of guys would like to believe, but I would still rather watch Spartans skewer Persians or Rocky beat the crap out of a big Russian dude. That's just part of being a dumb male.

So this shouldn't come as any surprise: if you are a single guy, you should pass on "Sex," and I didn't write that just because I giggled when I saw it on paper. You probably haven't seen the TV series and thus won't have any idea of what is going on and the sounds of battle coming from the movie next door will distract you. That's another thing about being a guy - we get distracted easily. Sorry ladies.

For everyone else - as a person interested in cinema and good storytelling, I found that the movie lacked the punch that carried the series. Everyone is getting married or having a baby or dealing with relationship drama. The idea behind the whole series - that Carrie is learning about love as she goes - is missing here and takes a lot more out of the story than you would think. She becomes another victim to imperfect love instead of the rapid fire dater that made her character interesting. Actually, all of the characters lose their charm before the movie even begins because all of the women are in serious relationships and that's not why viewers got into the show in the first place. The point is to watch four women stumble their way through the frustrating lovescape - not ooh and ah at their postmarriage lives.

Sex has its great moments - like Carrie's emotional clubbing of Big in the middle of New York traffic with a bundle of flowers and Steve's stunning admission - but these are too few and too disconnected and too drawn out to keep a dumb male like me interested. I felt like the girls didn't really get anywhere given where the TV series ended. Charlotte and Harry are completely static, Miranda and Steve finish exactly where the started and Carrie ends up with the guy we all knew she would end up with. Only Samantha's resolution with Smith Jared was a courageous step for executive producer Michael Patrick King and his writers, and even that felt like a little bit of a cop-out designed to balance out the lack of movement with the other principal characters.

Truthfully, the series just doesn't translate well to the contained plot box in movie world. Movies encourage contrived and predictable plots because there is no next episode. Even though the movie still has that "Sex and the City" feeling and style, it was the chances that the writers took with the series that made it sharp and progressive. Without the boldness, "Sex and the City" is a lot less sexy.