Sex and the City Reviews Say the Same Thing

I’m unlikely to see the movie, but I was curious how a potentially huge summer hit was reviewed. I perused four reviews:

• New York Times
• Globe and Mail
• Roger Ebert
• Slate

They’re all middling to bad reviews (reflective, I guess, of the growing critical consensus). What’s interesting to me is that the first three reviews I mention are structured very similarly, and pretty much emphasize the same things: the writer’s feelings for the TV series, the crappy script, the haute-couture fashion, how Charlotte gets diarrhea and how the men are mute window-dressing.

I guess movie reviews, like so much of journalism, have a kind of formula, and veteran reviewers tend to look for the same things. Dana Stevens from Slate stands out for a more original and possibly overly-serious review. Here’s a sample:

Samantha disappears entirely for stretches, and her story arc contains some of the movie’s most painfully unfeminist jokes (in which we learn, for example, that vigilant pubic grooming and toned abs are essential to female self-esteem). And an attempt to address the series’ endemic whiteness by adding a subaltern black character—Jennifer Hudson as Carrie’s designer-bag-toting Girl Friday—is a major misfire that only underscores our heroine’s oblivious entitlement.

Regardless, I’m sure the movie will have a rompin’, stompin’ weekend at the box office.