This movie is an obscenity.  It was so bad.  Watching this, I was offended that the director, writers, and whoever else had a hand in brewing this putrid stew thought they could get some laughs and some tears and some applause out of me.  Apparently all you need to do to make $400 million is put a handful of attractive bad actors in front of a small rodent holding a camera, ask them to say “peas and carrots” repeatedly, and show a naked penis.

Yes, that’s right.  As if in implicit recognition and refutation of my plaintive penis pleas, God (Selena Xie?) chose to make two FLICS movies in a row show penises.  What could be better (than playing a game of golf with a ‘gator)?!  The lucky viewer who finds him or herself able to watch the entire movie without spontaneously urinating is also rewarded with a look at Kim Cattrall’s nubile 52 year old body– nubile except for some cleverly placed sushi.

Aside from that, however, the merits of this abomination are few and far between.  The film centers around four best friends and their largely peripheral lovers.  They all have more money than God and as such can afford to be inexplicably mercurial in a very, “Fuck it, let’s go to Mexico!” way.  They traipse around New York City and litter the ground with pricetags, tears, mouth-numbingly sweet alcoholic drinks in strangely shaped glasses, and, though the director chose to leave this out, vomit.

To clarify, I did not hate this film because it portrayed a wealthy sector of society.  In fact, I really like it when an author or director finds a way to make a story compelling and moving even though the characters exist on the socioeconomic fringes of society.  I hated this film because it was a bad story with bad actors and a bad screenplay thrown in your face with money stapled to it.

And the money thing is not just my personal obsession.  Every scene is filled with it.  Money isn’t just spent like water, it’s spent and then wasted in a really obvious way.  For instance, an impossibly lavish wedding is just forgotten; there is no mention of the guests, the cleanup, how much it cost in the end.  Nothing.  It’s like New York City is Carrie Bradshaw’s litterbox and she shits money.

Sarah Jessica Parker shits this.

The acting is subpar at best.  At worst, it is Chris Noth (Mr. Big).  As much as I love Law & Order, I have to admit that his performance in this movie is horrible.  His character is one-dimensional in that he does things and the only explanation the viewer can summon is that he is a big dopey asshole.  Jennifer Hudson, who plays Louise, Carrie’s new assistant, gives such a bad performance that she comes off like a nervous five year old.  She looks like she had no idea what she was doing and, judging from the result, she did not.  Hudson’s character is written to very much play up the aspect of her skin color as well.  She often has stereotypically inflected one-liners, i.e. “Girrrrrrrrl,” that just make her character seem like a racial cliché.  As she is the only black character with any sort of presence in the film, I think it is a pretty significant and at least minorly suggestive mistake on the writers’ parts.

My grandmother used to say she hated movies that were just “beautiful people doing stuff.”  That is essentially what this is.  These actresses are so beautiful, they don’t even have to act like other people now.  They can just be themselves with a few textbook characteristics added: Kim Cattrall’s nymphomania, Sarah Jessica Parker’s ability to write or think in more than single word utterances or grunts, Kristin Davis’ incontinence (I am serious, just go watch the movie), and Cynthia Nixon’s ability to be anything more than a stick figure.

Cynthia Nixon in real life, Stick Stickly.

In sum, I think this movie’s big flaw lies in its lack of accessibility.  It is a chore for 99% of the world to attempt to relate to the main characters.  This isn’t just because of the ridiculous amounts of money they un-ironically spend; they behave like aliens.  They make up problems and then before you know it, there is no more issue and the viewer is left wondering what the fuck happened.

The ending of the movie was an absurd cherry on top of a completely senseless ice cream sundae.  The whole experience for me was like watching people speak a foreign language that I couldn’t understand.  They all looked like they were talking, but the sounds that came out didn’t make any sense and their subsequent actions seemed non sequitur and silly.  Maybe I need to have watched the TV show.  If it’s anything like the movie, however, I will get down on my knees and thank God I haven’t had the misfortune of being forced to see it thus far in my young life.

Grade: D-