50 Shades Darker

More like 50 Shades of Bored.

Director: James Foley
Writers: Niall Leonard (Screenplay)
               E.L.James (Novel)

This is a boring, boring, boring film. I was hoping that considering E.L.James didn't like the first movie that some of the more entertaining stuff from the books would make it into this one but that's apparently not the case. This thing is full of just talking and awkward sex, and bullshit that doesn't add up and bad editing. At least the first film had more entertaining dialogue, still awkward sex but it wasn't as awkward to look at, less stuff that didn't add up and at least it was well edited and looked like a good film.

Honestly, I don't even remember what this film was about, I saw it two nights ago and I only remember certain little bits that didn't add up, such as a scene where Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) is just stood in some absolutely gorgeous underwear while she's getting ready to go to a charity ball with Christian (Jamie Dornan). While at the charity ball they sneak off to his old bedroom and they have painfully awkward rutting sex that lasts around 3 - 6 seconds. Problem here, apart from one of the most awkward sex scenes I've ever seen, is that the beautiful underwear she was wearing in the previous scene is now just a pair of panties. I suppose she decided against the complicated set up for a backless dress but why put it on in the first place. There's more nipple here than in the last film so why bother covering it up?

Another pointless scene would be where Christians copter goes down, all of his family (and Jose played by Victor Rasuk) is in his apartment watching the news for...well news on what's going on. No surprise but just in case somebody reading this has no idea of what's coming, SPOILER, Christian waltzes back into his apartment looking like he's a little dirty literally a second after the news said he'd just been found and was on his way back. Why wasn't there any officials there? This honestly feels like a situation where the family shouldn't just be sat around stressed and watching the television, there should be somebody sat with them giving them updates before they're leaked on the news. Why was Jose there? Aside from being that guy in the previous film that liked Anastasia and tried to get with her while drunk, what connection does he have to Christian and his family? Was Scotty just on hand to beam Christian into his lift to make sure he got there just as the news said he was on his way back? What sort of bull is this?

The only things in this that could have been interesting would be seeing the relationships between that creepy girl following Anastasia and Mrs Robinson/Elena Lincoln (Bella Heathcote and Kim Basinger) with Anastasia. It'd be nice to see the way his first and most protective partner deals with him moving on and getting on with his life and another previous submissive dealing with her mental health but they're both done just so poorly. Elena is played as a bitter scorned ex and Leila is played as some crazy stalker, telling Anastasia she's not what he wants but honestly, it doesn't come across how it's probably meant. I'm not saying these women can't act, I've never seen Heathcote in anything before that I can remember but she clearly has some talent, and Basinger has been in some pretty good films but her performance in this was just...horrible to watch.

I wish this was more like the first film, I really do. It wasn't the best movie out, in fact, if you took out the gorgeous cinematography and music then you'd have a pretty shit movie. The problem is if this is the second film in this series and it's this much of a downgrade then we can only hope that the third, and there will be a third because we all know that there are people who think this is a genuinely good story, is a lot better than its predecessors. Maybe one day these films will be remade with the narration from the books and it will be a good, funny film for once. Of course, there would still be concerns about the BDSM community being misrepresented but if these were remade I'm almost certain they could make the insults more like a playful joke at the whole thing rather than insults.

This is just my opinion and if you disagree then that's great, I'm open to discussion and I'm always interested to hear how you feel about this film. This is also a critique which is considered "Fair Use" under the Copyright Act 1976. If you like this film then please go and support its creators by buying the books, buying a ticket to see the film (18+) and when the time comes, buy the DVD or Bluray (18+).