This is a movie so unbelievably girly, whirly and twirly that, on leaving the cinema, I felt like reading three Andy McNabs back to back, just to get my testosterone back up to metrosexual level. As all the world knows, it is a feature-film showcase for New York's female foursome: Carrie, the journalist (Sarah Jessica Parker), Samantha, the nympho PR (Kim Cattrall), Charlotte, the Park Avenue Princess (Kristin Davis), and Miranda, the occasionally bi-curious corporate lawyer (Cynthia Nixon). The film tells of their further adventures, which take place in the usual avalanche of Louis Vuitton bags and Manolo Blahnik shoes, one pair of which appears to have heels as long and sharp as Olympic-standard javelins.
It tells of their laughter, their tears, their breakups, their bonding, and yet again their tears. As I left the auditorium, the overwhelmingly female crowd were eagerly saying to each other things like: "I was crying for Carrie ..." "Oh no, I was crying for Samantha ..." "I was crying for Charlotte ..." They interrupted their conversations and looked over at me, concerned, as I leant against the wall, bit deeply into my SATC-promotional Galaxy chocolate bar and, empowered by the film's emotional literacy, found that for the first time I was able to weep for Avram Grant.
At almost two-and-a-half hours, the film is almost like watching a whole new series of the show, run together. The gals are supposed to have moved on - notionally - from when the programme ended in 2004. In the intervening four years, Carrie has become a bestselling author; Samantha lives in LA and is a personal manager to her main squeeze, hot actor Smith Jerrod, played by Jason Lewis so unexpressively he appears to have taken a hit of Botox in the frontal lobe. Charlotte is happily married to Harry (Evan Handler), with an adopted Chinese daughter, but Miranda is having problems in the nuptial bed with her down-to-earth Brooklyn spouse Steve (David Eigenberg). And the most exciting thing of all is that Carrie is about to tie the knot with Mr Big, played by Chris Noth with an intriguing, almost camp habit of sensually pursing his lips, which has always led me to suspect that Miranda isn't the only bi-curious character in the cast.
Anyway, the most mind-blowing wedding of the decade is on the cards. But wait. You don't suppose that sneaky commitmentphobe is going to mess our Carrie around, do you?
One of the enjoyable things about the original TV show was its sceptical view of the new micro-celebrity industry, in its infancy when the series began in 1998. In the opening titles each week, we saw Carrie bemused at the sight of her own face on the side of a bus, which splashed through a puddle drenching her - just in case she got big-headed. In the movie, she's supposedly this bestselling author, but nobody recognises her, and there are no TV cameras or paparazzi or Gawker Stalker civilians giving her grief. No, it's just Carrie and her buddies, just like in the old days, and Samantha is only positioned in LA so she can periodically return to New York and the girls can greet her with a deafening whoop, opening their mouths in that extraordinarily wide way, like Hillary Clinton, or like a boa constrictor dislocating its jaws prior to gobbling a rabbit. As in the TV show, Parker tops and tails each episode with her trademark rueful voiceover, mostly concluding with the words: "And, just like that ..." Before the film started, journalists were earnestly told not to reveal any of the cataclysmic plot developments: and I'm not sure whether or not this counts, but at one stage Carrie sensationally changes her hair colour, signalling a whole new emotional epoch.
There are some funny lines. After announcing to the gang that she will be moving into a glorious penthouse apartment with Mr Big, Carrie says earnestly: "Please go ahead and feel what I want you to feel: jealousy." When Samantha spots that Miranda has been neglecting her bikini line, she blurts out: "Jeez, honey - wax much? If you let things go on like this, you won't even be able to find it."
It is all very trivial and disposable, and yet for all its contrivances, its brand-name silliness and its amplified problems afflicting the comfortably-off metropolitan classes, I can't help thinking this is still a cut above the sinister romcom slush that we are fed, week in, week out. It is still unusual to see a film that features women as the leading characters of their own lives, and which attempts to imagine life after marriage. Like something glutinous from the pudding menu, Sex and the City isn't exactly wholesome, but it won't do you much harm this once.