"Fifty Shades of Grey" Movie Reivew

[Originally posted Feb. 14th, 2015]

WARNING: THIS REVIEW IS EXPLICIT!!!!

"Fifty Shades of Grey" is an erotic romantic novel written by E.L. James. The story focuses on the "relationship" between Bella Swan-whoops, I mean Anastasia Steele, a college student majoring in English Literature, and the brooding and mysterious Christian Grey (Edward Cullen *cough cough*) who is a billionaire and entrepreneur. As their relationship grows, Grey introduces Steele to the world of BDSM (bondage, discipline, sadism, masochism), where he holds the role of dominant, and he asks Steele to be his submissive. There's more stuff that happens around that, but ultimately, that's the story.

James's story was originally Twilight fan fiction, and apparently got so popular she just changed a few names, put the story in a new area, and added some really twisted sex shit, and voila- you've got a best selling novel, apparently. I will be honest, I did try reading the first book of the series but I just couldn't get into it- it wasn't really my thing. The characters were still Bella and Edward, the situations were identical to Twilight, and the sex scenarios were a little unbelievable. Seriously, EVERYTHING made Anastasia have an orgasm. She could we watching the nightly news and cum, I'm just sayin'.

The book that started it all... [found on Google Images]

So, it's only natural that since the "lady porn" book was such a best seller Hollywood wanted a piece of the hair pie. So writers, producers, directors and actors got to work trying to bring this piece of erotica to the big screen.



The movie was directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson (director of "Nowhere Boy") and produced by Micheal DeLuca, Dana Brunetti, and E.L. James herself. The film stars Dakota Johnson as Anastasia, and Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey. There are other characters in the movie, but they don't really give too much attention or focus on any of them, so in keeping with the theme of the movie, I'll just leave that as enough acknowledgement.

So, years ago when the book was at it's peak I made the promise to a couple friends that I would go see the movie with them once it came out. Since then, I've learned to seriously watch my mouth when it comes to such promises. I went to this movie on opening day and let me just say, I've been hearing a lot of hype from two different views on this movie. One the one hand, you have all of the positive hype saying this is going to be awesome, this is going to be so sexy, the theaters are going to have to give all female viewers towels, etc. Then on the other side of the coin, there has bee a lot of negativity surrounding this film- a lot of people felt that the book, though a piece of fiction, not only misrepresents the BDSM lifestyle, but also makes abusive relationships look romantic. Also, the old argument of feminism that followed Twilight once again reared it's head. Both of these arguments/statements have good points. Though I can see how people would be angry with the story, I will admit that though I didn't finish the book, there were parts that I found pretty kinky and hot. So though it's not my cup of tea, I tried to keep a somewhat open mind when I got to the theater, as I was annoyed by both sides of the argument. And let me say, that after watching it, I felt like the movie took my virginity. But not in like an "Oooh, sexy" way, more in like the way everyone's first time is actually like- it was blown up to sound awesome, but when it happened it felt forced, it was awkward, and I was SO glad when it was over.

I can honestly say that while the movie had more giggle-worthy lines than Mortdecai did (mainly from Johnson, but I'll get to that later), at least Mortdecai, bland as it was, held my attention for the whole movie. This movie, was really, really boring. And that's saying something in a movie that is 60% sex scene. But even with all of that, I never once felt turned on. Though BDSM isn't my thing, I have seen "Secretary" which not only explained the concept better, but it also had some hotness to it. If you haven't seen it, you should check it out for sure. It's a good movie, even if this type of kink isn't for you. Anyway, moving on.

Apparently this is a pretty repetitive complaint of the movie.The boredom was mainly due to fact that the main characters don't really have a believable connection. All of their dialog is loaded with cheesy lines from the book, the "romance" this movie tries to create falls on it's face. All of their interactions, verbal and physical seem really forced. Remember that movie "Dirty Dancing"? That relationship felt genuine. You won't be seeing any of those sparks here, folks. While Johnson was great in this ingenue role, and most of the movies best lines came from her, it wasn't enough to keep the movie afloat. Also, while her character clearly added the color to this melancholy love affair (it's even evident in her wardrobe choices), her stern and reserved counterpart didn't really add, well, anything to the mix. Now, I will say a lot of people are condemning Dornan's portrayal as Grey. I have to ask myself, is it really Dornan they have a problem with, or is it Christian Grey? While he's been played up as a sex figure in popular culture to date, his character always seemed really bland to me. I honestly thought Dornan did the best he could with this sub-par script and even less par source material. Ultimately, this character is just a sexed up Edward Cullen. And I can't help but feel that Dornan was MUCH more enjoyable than Robert Pattinson ever was in any of the Twilight films. While he was still extremely reserved and calculated in his execution, he still had more of a personality than his vampiric counterpart. Also, he was a lot more pushy than he was whiny, and I'll take that over whiny any day. However, the rest of the characters were identical to the Twilight characters they once were in the world of fan fiction. There is a scene in this movie where Christian brings Anastasia to his parent's house to meet his family, and ALL of the other characters looked so much like the Cullen family from Twilight, I laughed. I mean, I knew this movie was based on fan fiction, but I thought they would at least try and hide it a little more. Apparently I was giving them entirely too much credit.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie is about 60% sex- they really packed this movie as full as they could before their R rating went to a solid NC-17. Apparently, they cut out a lot of the more abusive scenes from the book out which is good, because it gave viewers more of a chance to connect with the really unbelievable and incompatible relationship between the main characters. I really didn't understand most of their relationship... It started out like Twilight- "I'm a bad man- you need to stay away from me, but I can't stay away from you blah blah blah", but then the deeper they get into the BDSM, you can tell that though there are things Anastasia likes about it, on the whole it's clearly not the type of relationship she wants. And during all of this, Christian insists he's not into normal romantic relationships. And I've gotta say- for someone who doesn't do that type of relationship, he sure is good at acting like it's something he wants/is used to. The story itself is supposed to be a story of Anastasia's sexual awakening, but I kept asking myself, why is she so willing to put up with what he wants, and why is he so unwilling to meet her somewhere in between? He was really adamant about wanting her and only her, you would think he would either come to terms that this wasn't something she was into, or he could get what he wanted from someone else. It was a little frustrating and ridiculous.

So finally, at the end of the movie, in order to gain more "understanding", after a fight with Christian, Anastasia tells him to punish her as he would if she continued having this type of relationship. So, Christian has her strip down, leans her over a table, and whips her bear ass with a belt 6 times. Afterward, she is clearly hurt and humiliated, and though she clearly feels something for him, she leaves him. Honestly, I thought the ending made the most sense out of everything I had seen in the movie thus far. However, it clearly is setting things up for a sequel. Let's hope it won't end up like "Eragon," "The Last Airbender" and "Beautiful Creatures" because that would just be embarrassing.

Anastasia and Christian [found on Google Images]

Some things I actually liked about the movie was the cinematography and the color choices for certain scenes. Some of them had very distinct lighting for specific scenes that helped invoke the feelings the movie was trying to get across. Also, the choice of wardrobe for the characters really spoke all on it's own. I believe that if you took out all of the dialogue from the movie, and just had the lighting, the colors, and the clothes, you could figure out everything you need to know about the characters and the story from just that. It may also help cut out some of the unnecessary cheese.... But ultimately, you can throw nice fabric and good lighting on anything, but it doesn't automatically make it good.

Anyway, another plus for this movie was the soundtrack- it's great. It's classy, melancholy, edgy, clean and raw. And let me just say the 50 Shades version of Beyonce's "Crazy in Love" is some serious fuckin' music. I would not at all be surprised if some couples weren't pumping that song while they get down tonight.

Ultimately, this movie wasn't that great. There are movies that are a lot worse than this one, but this movie isn't at all what it was built up to be- surprise, surprise... The chemistry was non-existent, the story was bland and ridiculous, and it literally was just like the newest installment in the Twilight Saga minus that creepy vampire baby, which actually is a plus, so there's that working in this movie's favor. And for a movie that's major selling point was the crazy amount of sex, it really missed the mark; no 'giney tickles were felt here, which for a horned up virgin like myself was probably the biggest let down of all. If you want to see a movie with a lot of on-screen sex, look into other movies that are considerably better; "Basic Instinct", "Monster's Ball", "Blue Valentine", and of course "Secretary" as I mentioned earlier. All in all, you really won't be missing much if you just sit out of this one.