As a result, this cinematic finale to the beloved HBO comedy feels like watching an entire season of shoe love, true love and everything in between -- all crammed into one loooooooooong sitting.

Fans of the show (based on Candace Bushnell's best-seller of the same name) will, undoubtedly and delightedly, revel in every bloated moment.

Yet those of us who never acquired an addiction to a series renowned for its wicked wit may be forgiven for wondering what the frenzy was, and is, all about.

Then again, forgiveness seems to be one of the movie's overriding themes, so at least it's consistent, if not insistently memorable.

When we last left "Sex and the City's" fab four, 30-something writer Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker), who chronicled her (and her friends') ongoing adventures in the Manhattan singles sweepstakes, had reunited yet again with the dashing Wall Streeter she dubbed Mr. Big (Chris Noth).

Lawyer Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), meanwhile, has decamped to far-from-glam Brooklyn with her husband Steve (David Eigenberg) and 5-year-old son. Charlotte (Kristin Davis) is living happily ever after on Park Avenue with her husband Harry (Evan Handler) and adopted daughter. And PR whiz Samantha (Kim Cattrall) has gone Hollywood with her hunky young TV star boyfriend/client (Jason Lewis).

So, now that they all look like they've found their happy endings, it's the movie's task to muddle the storybook picture -- not too much, mind you, but just enough to set up enough complications to postpone the inevitable happy ending(s).

And, lest we forget, to give audiences plenty of chances to catch Carrie and Co. showing off multiple closets full of fabulous fashions while indulging in multiple group hugs before, during and after assorted mid-life crises.

In between, "Sex and the City" makes a few telling points about the seemingly endless battle of the sexes -- and the ways in which the combatants are, and aren't, willing to declare a truce.

Writer-director Michael Patrick King (who guided the series in its later seasons) also explores, sort of, the constant push-pull between living your life for yourself and living with, and for, someone else.

But King never quite manages to find a middle ground between "Sex and the City's" TV roots and its big-screen incarnation.

Sure, all the drama unfolds on a movie screen, but King still treats "Sex and the City" too much like a TV show, cutting from one character's story to another instead of interweaving multiple plot lines into a seamless whole.

And just when you think there are too many characters hauling around too much baggage for any one movie (and you'd be right), along comes a new character to overload the proceedings: Carrie's new personal assistant Louise ("Dreamgirls" Oscar-winner Jennifer Hudson), a starry-eyed St. Louis native who's come to the big city to find love and a Louis Vuitton handbag. (Not necessarily in that order.)

She's a sweetheart. So is the cheery Charlotte -- which is probably why they're the movie's least interesting characters.

As the saucy, sexually voracious Samantha, Cattrall provides a welcome blast of undiluted id -- and a welcome contrast to Nixon's edgy Miranda, who keeps trying to apply lawyerlike logic to something that defies logic altogether: married life.

Parker's charmingly wistful Carrie, meanwhile, can't quite help feeling, deep down, that she might not deserve the happy ending she (and we) keep hoping for.

Of course she deserves it. We all know she deserves it. And we all know she's going to get what she deserves.

If only it didn't take so long to get there.

Contact movie critic Carol Cling at ccling@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0272.