When this is the platform the movie has to stem from it is not surprising that the producers decided to cram this same trajectory into 148 minutes for the movie. It is as though they have created a checklist for the key ingredients including handbags, crass jokes, friendship affirmation, independent female power, hot sex, a bit of heartache, fashion fashion fashion, and strung them all together on the flimsiest of narrative chains. This has then been promoted and advertised beyond belief, perhaps in the hope of distracting most viewers away from the truth that these vignettes are so manufactured and shallow that you might as well be watching a series of commercials on an adult or baby channel.

What happened to the snap and strength of the first few series? Where is the challenge? The taboo-breaking that was all so exciting and empowering once upon a time? I'm not saying I didn't pre-book tickets for the film's first night in London and go along with only female friends with much anticipation. One of the major and enduring beauties of SATC is that it is perfect for a girly gathering of laughter, swooning, and cattiness but for anyone like myself who hoped that the years between the series and the movie meant that much effort had been spent on injecting the film with the same pizzazz we once loved in the series, it was a sore disappointment.

We are reminded that (SPOILER ALERT!) Carrie perhaps gets 'carried away' (who passed that punchline, I would like to know ... AWFUL!) with the idea of love and then learns to just enjoy it, we see Miranda have her usually cold heart broken by the one man she let in only to learn that she was partly to blame, Charlotte finally gets all that she ever wanted as a reward for her enduring sweetness, and Samantha almost loses herself in a man but then finds her fabulous self again. This is not to mention that Big yet again reveals himself to be incredibly self-centred and not half the man he should be, only to be forgiven following the smallest of gestures. Am I the only one who thinks walking away from a wedding is a much bigger deal than, say, forgetting a birthday? If he is indeed 'Big' is he not man enough to have addressed his issues with Carrie before the wedding day, say during the planning stage ... ?

Not only have we seen this all before (this can perhaps be forgiven), but it is served up to us in such a transparent way that I couldn't help but wonder if the target audience was no longer the thiry- and forty-somethings who are supposedly validated by these characters, but instead the giggling teens and twenty-somethings who couldn't contain their shrieks of happiness at the screening I attended. More seasoned women of the age of SATC's characters I'm sure would have a much better understanding of disappointments, realities, trust, and friendship than to be swooning over a man who is so unreal that even his commonly used name is not sincere.

Despite my obvious dislike for the disappointingly shallow narrative and unfulfilled potential of the film, I'm sure if I had television at home and this same film were going to be broadcast on a night I had no other plans I would surely watch it. It is easy entertainment — yes, it made me smile and even shed a couple of tears but it also made me curse out loud in frustration at the conclusion which totally betrays any strength, sanctioning, and change which the series first promised.