Fans Loathe the ‘Sex and the City’ Movies More Than the Worst Ranked Episode of the Series
It’s not easy for a long-running and beloved television series to end on a good note. With fan expectations so high for the characters, it’s almost impossible to please everyone. But somehow, Sex and the City writers managed to achieve this difficult task.
The series finale of the HBO comedy received high marks for fitfully wrapping up the four main character’s storylines in a satisfying way. However, the creators ruined all that when they came out with the two Sex and the City movies a few years later.
Those two future length films have worse ratings than the lowest-rated episode of the show on IMDb. Here’s why.
The ‘Sex and the City’ finale is the best-ranked episode ever
It was impossible to avoid the influence of Carrie, Miranda, Samantha, and Charlotte between 1998 and 2004.
Sex and the City broke the mold for TV shows with strong female leads and took the conversations about sex, relationships, friends, and single life further than they’d ever gone before. The ending was beautiful but bittersweet.
“An American in Paris: Part Deux” shows all four women continuing along their paths to self-fulfillment. Carrie finally gets emotional commitment from the man she’s loved for years. Charlotte becomes a mother, Miranda sacrifices for her ailing mother-in-law, and Samantha gets in touch with her emotions. It’s a deeply moving and uplifting episode with an 8.8/10 rating on IMDb.
However, it all got ruined a few years later.
The ‘Sex and the City’ movie didn’t live up to the series
Series creator Darren Star would have been wise to leave these four women’s destinies ambiguous, allowing fans to fill in their own happy endings. Instead, the ladies reunited for a feature-length sequel which was simply called Sex and the City. It was released in 2008.
In it, Carrie and Big almost get married but then he ditches her at the altar. Miranda struggles with the monotony of marriage, Samantha lives in Los Angeles with Smith, and Charlotte gets pregnant unexpectedly after adopting a baby from China. Eventually, Carrie and Big do get married, but there’s a lot of drama beforehand.
The movie has an abysmal 5.6/10 rating on IMDb, which is well below the worst-ranked episode of the series (that was “Defining Moments” from season 4 with a 7.1). But it’s nothing compared to the sequel.
‘Sex and the City 2’ is considered one of the worst movies ever made
If the Sex and the City movie was a disappointment, then Sex and the City 2 was a total disaster. The follow-up to the first film was released in 2010 and received absolutely no love from critics or fans. They called it unnecessary, out of touch, and worst of all, offensive.
The plot shows the best friends struggling through marriage and motherhood. But the most egregious issues arise when the women head to Abu Dhabi, where they completely misunderstand the culture and become disrespectful during their vacation. Carrie kisses her ex, Aidan, and then confesses what she did to Big. The movie culminates with Carrie flashing her legs to hail a cab in the predominantly Muslim country.
The film has a 4.5 rating on IMDb. Meanwhile, the third movie was never made, at least in part due to the terrible reception of the first two.
HBO Max will be rebooting the series in 2021 and hopefully redeeming themselves, though the Sex and the City remake won’t include Samantha. It’ll take a lot to make fans forget just how much they hated these lackluster movies though.
