Review: FIFTY SHADES DARKER Is More Like Fifty Shades Lighter
Let me start this review by saying how much I love you guys. Whoever you are, reading this article, I love you. That’s why I saw this movie. It’s not a commitment to my work, or even this website, it’s you. You’re welcome.
Did I see Fifty Shades of Grey? Did I read the book? Hell, no. But I did read the Wikipedia page so that I would be up-to-speed before going into the sequel, Fifty Shades Darker. From my understanding, it’s the classic story of a girl looking for commitment from a guy who just wants wild, casual sex. In other words, every Tinder interaction ever, give or take a billion dollars.
Dakota Johnson stars as Ana Steele, perhaps the luckiest girl in the world. After dumping her... sexual partner, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), for refusing to enter a normal relationship with her and for being way too into weird kinky stuff, Ana begins her dream job as an assistant at a publishing house in hopes of one day becoming an editor. After work, she runs into—or is stalked by, more accurately—her former beau at an art show. He persuades her to have dinner with him, and they immediately get back together when he agrees to be her boyfriend. For realsies this time, guys.
I say Ana is lucky because she has a power that most other girls dream of. Apparently, she can turn even the baddest boy into a loving, committed boyfriend. The whole entire premise of this movie is basically just Christian showing Ana how much he’s changed, and how he really is there for her. Ana is the patron saint of any woman who has ever said, “I can fix him.”
I don’t know what happened in the first movie, but apparently Christian was a total jackass/control freak. There’s almost none of that in this movie. Christian Grey seems like a really nice guy with a troubled past, but he’s learning to work through it with the help of his awesome girlfriend. And any time a remotely tense situation arises within their relationship, one of them ends up giving in, and everything is perfect once again. Until, of course, one of Christian’s former submissives shows up and threatens to ruin it all.
The acting in this movie is as good as you would expect. The writing comes off like a soap opera that managed to get the budget to hire a decent cinematographer. The plot, like the sex scenes, never reaches a climax. And every time something even remotely threatening happens, everyone manages to make it through unscathed.
I heard one of the big issues people had with the first movie was that it wasn’t kinky enough. Well, kids, unless you get turned on by a guy really showing how committed he is in a relationship (I’m looking at you, ladies) there isn’t much this movie has to offer in terms of heat. Sure, there’s a lot of sex, and it’s probably not a movie to watch with your mom, but it’s pretty tame. I would say I was disappointed, but my expectations were at rock-bottom to begin with.