Cast: I like Dakota Johnson a lot. I won't pretend that the promise of her nakedness wasn't some draw to the movie, but I genuinely do like Dakota Johnson as a performer. I think she's a talented comedic actress. I was a huge fan of her show Ben & Kate. In fact, I think the moments that by far work the best in this movie are when she gets to crack a joke. Jamie Dornan was a complete blank slate for me going in and he still was going out. I couldn't tell you what I thought of him because Christian Grey is a non-character. Had the A-listers rumored for the role been cast, the character would be equally impenetrable. Those are the only two characters who matter in this.
Plot: Anastasia Steele (Johnson), yeah, that's her name, chances her way into an interview with reclusive billionaire Christian Grey. For some reason, he decides he likes her. The movie never bothers to explain why. She's the kind of pretty girl who every guy is in love with but she never notices. She notices Christian's interest though. It helps that he's handsome, super rich, showers her with gifts, and essentially stalks her. They get tied into (teeheehee) a bit of a relationship and he reveals that his into some intense master/slave stuff. This is based on an erotic novel after all. He has a contract he wants her to sign regarding this relationship. There's a bunch of sex scenes that were surprisingly boring. Eventually it ends and you wonder why that took two hours.
Elephant in the Room: What about the sex stuff? That's what this movie's all about, isn't it? Well, I've seen this movie on Cinemax Late Night back in 2001. There's almost nothing about 50 Shades that is different from something on "Skinemax" except that 50 Shades wants to be legitimate. It's trying to be "shocking" with an R-rating which will only underwhelm the fans while still being enough to bother those who dislike it on principle. Personally, I just thought it did a piss-poor job of getting across its point. Christian Grey comes off as a guy who wants to beat women (I kept waiting for the Dexter dark passenger music to start playing), without ever explaining why. I think the point is that after however many books the series has, you are supposed to understand him and she'll come around to it and all that. As a singular movie, it is awful.
Movie Theater MVP: Take your pick. The theater was filled with people "mmm-hmm"-ing loudly to different moments , but I'm going to have to give the award to the old couple who went into the wrong theater an hour into the movie. They meant to walk into the 2:30 showing, not the 1:30 and didn't immediately realize this. The woman just kept loudly repeating that she couldn't see and asked the old man to hold her hand. I'm pretty sure she called it "The 50 Shades of Grey" at least once. A lot of the people in the theater were very annoyed by how loud and distracting they were. I was dying with laughter and would've welcomed them to continue for the rest of the movie.
To Sum Things Up:
This was a bad movie in all the wrong ways. It was too long. There was no narrative hook. I didn't like any of the characters. The performances were wooden as was the direction and the screenplay and the source material. It tried to play it safe thus taking away the little bit that made the book special in the first place. It even made the nudity boring for god's sake. Regardless of what you are looking to get out of this, there's better movies or websites for it.
Final Note: I'd be remiss to not mention that the soundtrack is solid for both what it aimed to do and the audience it was intended for.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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