Sex and the City 2008

Critics score:
49 / 100

Reviews provided by RottenTomatoes

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: There is something depressingly stunted about this movie; something desperate too. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Sex and the City: The Motion Picture (not the actual title) is a joyful wallow. And it's more: In this summer of do-overs (The Incredible Hulk, a new Batman versus a new Joker), it's what the series finale should have been. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: In both its TV and movie incarnations, the empty materialism and sincere longing for love always manage to cancel each other out, leaving behind nothing but what this started out as -- a sitcom. Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: It's just that there's been an altitude adjustment -- fewer stilettos, more flats. Ask what women want of a chick flick and one answer may be this -- a pleasant reunion with cherished friends. Ask what women deserve and the answer is better. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: I am not the person to review this movie. Perhaps you will enjoy a review from someone who disqualifies himself at the outset, doesn't much like most of the characters and is bored by their bubble-brained conversations. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Sex and the City: The Movie is no great shakes as a movie, but it doesn't have to be. What it does have to be is a happy revisit to a land its fans know well, and on that level it works very well. Read more

Genevieve Koski, AV Club: Ultimately, Sex And The City serves as a glitter-laced love letter to its fans, which is really all it needs to be. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: From the running time to the plot development for each character, which grows to beating-a-dead-horse lengths in at least a couple of cases, the whole thing would have been better served by holding back a little. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: The movie is just like a half-season of the series -- a funny, sappy, clumsy, crude, rambunctious, argumentative, gleefully vulgar attempt to balance the fantasy of romance with the reality that the fantasy is impossible. Read more

Carina Chocano, Los Angeles Times: A vision of which doesn't require its characters being frozen in amber after a fairy tale ending and allows life to go on, happily and unconventionally. Read more

Jessica Reaves, Chicago Tribune: Witty, effervescent and unexpectedly thoughtful, the big-screen iteration of the HBO series stands up beautifully (and somewhat miraculously) to the twin pressures of popular expectation and critical assessment. Read more

Bobby Hankinson, Houston Chronicle: The film is by no means a masterpiece, but it's a worthy exercise in indulgence that won't disappoint the cosmo-swilling core audience. And fans won't need to swill any cosmos to enjoy it. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: As gender-segregated experiences go, SATC is preferable to, say, that idiotic beefcake epic 300. The amusing thing about SATC is that it objectifies men in much the same way that most male-oriented movies objectify women. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: There were a lot of very funny moments in this film. I almost cried. Read more

Tom Long, Detroit News: After staggering around a bit at the beginning it settles down and finds its groove. It's appropriately flashy, nicely naughty and wholly improbable, just as it's supposed to be. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: A movie that taps directly back into the show's primal appeal, which is the sweet, sad, saucy delight of sharing these women's company. Read more

Mark Bourne, Film.com: ...'Yes,' she said. 'It's Star Trek for women.'... Read more

Tom Maurstad, Dallas Morning News: Fans rejoice: It's good. And smart. And funny. Read more

Amy Nicholson, I.E. Weekly: Time ticks by easily like a lazy TV marathon, a humbler achievement than demanded by a diva flick that's as self-congratulatory as Indy across the multiplex Read more

Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly: King fails to grasp what he once understood: When times are hard, you don't cry poverty. You step on the gas and give the audience a show. Read more

Connie Ogle, Miami Herald: More disappointment than joyful reunion, a tedious and desperately drawn-out affair that tests your patience even as it brazenly courts (and often earns) your contempt. Read more

Gene Seymour, Newsday: A lot different from, say, watching several SATC episodes on DVD in succession as if gobbling fudge brownies. That may be OK for the living room, but in a multiplex, you just want things to move along already. Read more

Anthony Lane, New Yorker: I walked into the theatre hoping for a nice evening and came out as a hard-line Marxist, my head a whirl of closets, delusions, and blunt-clawed cattiness. All the film lacks is a subtitle: The Lying, the Bitch, and the Wardrobe. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: An absurd joke. Read more

Bob Mondello, NPR.org: This celebration with Carrie & Co. — very much television writ large — seems precisely the Sex and the City reunion the show's fans had hoped for. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: They're all over 40 now, and writer/director Michael Patrick King deftly balances their hard-won wisdom with the wistful dreams they still share. At the same time, there's plenty of fun to be had. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: This movie provides no good reasons to revisit Sex and the City, except to fulfill fans' desires for one more for the road and add millions to Time Warner's coffers. Be careful what you wish for. Read more

Rex Reed, New York Observer: Bottom line: a provocative, groundbreaking TV series that worked in 30-minute segments has been bloated and padded into nearly two and a half hours of tedium and gratuitous product placement for everything from Vuitton to a new Mercedes-Benz GLK. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: If it all feels a mite perfunctory, a mite trite and a little dated (the girls haven't heard of the New Frugality?), Sex and the City still manages to be a hymn to hotness, hipness and haute couture, one its fans can happily sing along with. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: Frothy as a Margarita and just as salty, Sex and the City all but mambos its way onto the screen. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: For those who do not consider themselves to be among the Sex and the City faithful, this is a painful experience, perhaps the longest 148 minutes likely to be spent in a movie theater this year. Watching grass grow is more dramatically satisfying. Read more

Lisa Bornstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News: If Sex and the City is a hit, it will be partly because it's an enjoyable and somewhat true depiction of female friendship. But grown women will also go to see it because, finally, someone made a movie for them. Read more

Stephanie Zacharek, Salon.com: The show was at its best when it offered, without a great deal of extraneous examination, these glimpses into the nature of friendships between women. The movie needs more of that. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Fans of Sex and the City will love the movie version. Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: It's all really soapy, though, with only some smidgens of substance. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: The movie's initially brisk pacing slackens when the girls spend a holiday in Mexico that's long enough for them to cycle through an entire resort-wear collection. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The movie, scripted and directed by series veteran Michael Patrick King, caters to viewers nostalgic for the Emmy-winning show while pushing forward into feature film territory. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: I hate, loathe and despise -- sorry to mince my words -- the movie based on the TV show. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: For those who'd like some substance in a movie pushing 2 1/2 hours, though, it's gratifying to report that this Sex is more than just a fan dance. Read more

Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine: Learning and hugging. There's lots of that here a" woman to woman and man to woman a" which satisfies the movie's fantasy fulfillment of both amity and eros. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: Amid the style, sass and sexiness is plenty of sentimentality, especially at the satisfying conclusion. Read more

Phil Gallo, Variety: Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: For a series so steeped in romance, the eagerly awaited Sex and the City movie feels a trifle half-hearted. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Judged by the standards of its original medium, the movie version succeeds just as well, cramming what used to take a whole season into a nearly 2 1/2 -hour marathon of men, misery and Manolos. Read more