I don't know quite how to break this to you, so perhaps it's better to just come right out and say it. According to Chris Noth (Mr Big), Sex and the City is dead. If true, this means that we will never again be exposed to the cloying relationship advice of Sarah Jessica Parker. Never again will the threat of hearing Kim Cattrall have an orgasm loom quite so threateningly above us. Never again will we be able to fork over handfuls of our own money in order to watch four neurotic women crank out one laborious genital-based pun after another for two and a half turgid hours. This is a sad day indeed.

But if Sex and the City is dead, what killed it? Noth is unequivocal: the blame lays solely at the feet of the critics. He told New York magazine: "The press killed it. Your magazine fucking killed it. New York Magazine. It's like all the critics got together and said, 'This franchise must die.'"

But is he right? Possibly. After all, Sex and the City 2 did come in for more of a gleeful savaging than any other film in recent memory. Roger Ebert opened his review with the line: "Some of these people make my skin crawl." Peter Bradshaw noted that Béla Tarr's seven and a half hour black and white Hungarian miseryfest Sátántangó "zips past like an episode of Spongebob Squarepants" compared with the United Arab Emirates portion of Sex and the City 2. And let's not forget the gloriously ferocious bludgeoning the film received at the hands of The Stranger's Lindy West, full of lines like: "If this is what modern womanhood means, then just fucking veil me and sew up all my holes."

But maybe, just maybe, there are other reasons for Sex and the City's demise. Like, for instance, the fact that the films lost sight of what made the TV show so appealing. When it began, Sex And The City was a bracing, stylish – if admittedly quite annoying – no-holds-barred effort to explore themes of modern femininity in a self-consciously populist manner. Compare that with the pointless materialism and Samantha-falls-off-a-camel laziness of this year's film, and the decline becomes clear for all to see. Plus, anybody going to see a film called Sex and the City might feel slightly let down to discover that, instead of sex or cities, they'd actually paid to see a film about some women honking on about shoes in a desert for 146 mind-breaking minutes.

Then there's the fact that Sex and the City had become less of a film franchise and more of a depressing merchandising commodity. The obligatory magazine spreads telling you where to buy the £330 Mykita sunglasses that Sarah Jessica Parker wore in the movie poster were to be expected, but it felt a bit much to also be subjected to the parade of cash-in tat that included the official SATC 2 chocolate bar, the official SATC 2 vodka and the official SATC 2 yoghurt. I can't think of a single well-received film that's ever had an official yoghurt. I could be wrong, though. For all I know, The Bicycle Thief ran a mutually beneficial endorsement programme with Danone upon its release. I haven't checked.

Then there's also the thorny issue – neatly overlooked by Noth – that Sex And The City 2 was simply a very bad film. It was far too long, far too pleased with itself and at times far too uncomfortably racist for anybody to be able to legitimately enjoy it. Who knows? Maybe the film's inherent and obvious terribleness also had something to do with it.

But whatever the reasons, it looks like Sex and the City really is dead and buried. Please feel free to treat the comment section like an impromptu book of condolences.