Er...

You guys, that movie was not very good.

I'm sorry to say it, because I did have quite a bit of fun attending the morning screening, then getting out of the theater well into the dusk (seriously, it is at LEAST twelve hours long), but Jeez Saint Louise. This is not a good film.

A couple of spoilers, and then, tomorrow, I'll give you a link to something better than my opinion (hint: it's hugely exciting!).

--Jennifer Hudson's family may as well have been played by Eddie Murphy in four different costumes, it was so fucking racist. Hello, Central Casting? Can I get a black family please? And make sure the gram'ma does a good "Oh, Lord!" facial expression when she clasps her hand to her bosom, okay? No, she doesn't have any lines.

--Carrie should NOT have gotten back with Big at the end. Particularly after her little revelation that SHE was the one who CAUSED him to jilt her, by letting the wedding get "bigger than Big" and the like. Guess what? No dice! If the guy said he'd marry you, he's gotta show up. Otherwise, he's a resident of Putztown, USA (a crappy place to live). Of course a wedding is uncomfortable. So was my Bat-Mitzvah! You don't think I had better things to do than stand in front of my aunts on a Saturday morning and chant my haftorah wearing a talis? Of course I did! I could have been oversleeping and overeating, my two favorite weekend pastimes. But it was important to my family, so on went the talis, and then we were done with it.

--Charlotte clearly hails from the Stepford section of the Upper East Side. All that character does is beam and look boring in clothes. And also, something's wrong with all of the kids in this movie. They are all developmentally slow in the language department, or else MPK has officially run out of dialogue. Speaking of which...

--For a film about women, these characters sure hate communication! All of the fighting in the movie stems from the lack of simple conversations any real person would have with another real person in real life. If I were to hear "I had sex with somebody else" from my husband, I would ask him, "Who?" and also, "When?" before icily retreating into the Brooklyn air, then commencing the silent treatment sequence in the chip implanted in my Miranda-bot motherboard. Also, if Big wants to talk, let Big talk! Don't throw flowers. Have a chat, then go to Mexico.

--For an audience to buy the conceit that Samantha is "fat now" is tremendously arrogant. And to give Kim Cattrall little more to do than shovel guac into her mouth and ogle her neighbor's half-revealed peen is sadism. She's one of America's finest comedic actresses! Shower her with well-written barbs.

--My favorite outfits? Thank you for asking. Carrie's electric blue, excessively-bell sleeved mini she wears in her stylish apartment with a chain necklace; Samantha's yellow suit with the jagged seam down the front she wears during the auction scene, the first wedding gown, and Miranda's swimsuit, I guess. Nothing from Charlotte. Fuck Charlotte.

--Way I wish it ended: Samantha announces triumphantly she is moving back to NYC. Carrie decides to be single and loving it. Some semblance of hope is donated to future generations of girls, the way Heimel ends Sex Tips For Girls by reminding even the brokenhearted that "we dancing girls are honor bound to keep on dancing." There's no generosity in this film; no sex even. It's about four biddies who lose their men, then get them back.

**

There are a couple of great pieces online about the movie, including Anthony Lane's hilarious evisceration . Here's a link to Slate's article about J-Hud as Carrie's BBF (Black Best Friend) and here's a piece from Salon, in which four sex columnists, including Susie Bright & Rachel Kramer-Bussel, weigh in on the SATC phenomenon. Bright isn't keen on the film, but amended that "anything that gets women out of the house, hanging out with each other and confiding in each other and how they traverse their own sexual terrain, that's great. " I thought about her on Saturday morning, as I enjoyed myself despite the film's meager offerings, because I was in the company of girlfriends. We gawked at the outfits, sniffed (well, some of us) at the Brooklyn Bridge scene, and snorted our way through the chick flick previews (Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Two! The Women starring Meg Ryan! Mamma Mia! Something about Richard Gere and Diane Lane and a Beach House!) So, in the grand scheme of things, what's the big harm?

Anyway, it was better than Indiana Jones.