Please be warned that while I don’t actually swear in this review, I do use a fair share of sexual euphemisms. There will also be spoilers because does anyone really care about the plot? This is a review of a highly adult movie so please keep that in mind as I make off-color jokes . If you are easily offended then please turn back now. If not, then read on. I’m particularly proud of this one.
I hated the Fifty Shades of Grey book. It angered me that terrible Twilight fan fiction got so famous and sold so many copies where there are better authors out there with better stories that can’t make a living off their writing. I’m glad more people seem to be reading these days, but why can’t they pick good books? I tried to read Fifty Shades but put it down when my eyes started to bleed and my brain started to ooze out of my ears. The book was terribly written and it was even worse than Twilight which was a literary abortion to begin with. But what if, I thought to myself, what if the movie is better than the book? What if Hollywood managed to turn a pile of crap into a diamond? So I watched the movie and you know what I learned? No matter how hard you polish a piece of crap, it’s still crap.
Let’s start with the characters. Anastasia Steele? Really? Could EL James come up with a worse name? Why not just call her Anastasia Penis? In fact I sent a text to seven of my closest friends and asked them to come up with their favorite penis euphemisms and will replace Steele with one of those words for the rest of the review. Anastasia Bits-n-Tackle suffers from young adult main character syndrome much like Katniss Everdeen (Hunger Games), Thomas (from Maze Runner), or Tris Prior (Divergent). She has no personality. She’s a blank slate. She’s a pod person. The most emotion she showed during the whole film was when Christian was getting down and dirty. The only other time that any hint of personality came out was at the end when they had their big fight and she storms off after finally making a decision. Anastasia John Thomas is written poorly so it has nothing to do with Dakota Johnson’s performance. And did you notice that even the actresses last name is another word for penis? But I digress. Christian Grey is described perfectly by his name. He’s just as two-dimensional and boring as Anastasia Devilstick is. And the fault again lies with the author. Lieutenant Commander Data had a wilder emotional pallet than Anastasia Donger and Christian Grey did.
It’s interesting that in one of the first scenes in the movie, Christian Grey brings up three fantastic authors like Hemingway and Austin. It’s as if he’s saying, “Hey, read these instead, these are examples of good authors.” I picked up on the fact that there was supposed to be attraction and sexual tension between Grey and Anastasia Schlong, but I just didn’t feel it. It could have been the wooden acting due to the bland writing, but the chemistry felt forced. I’d like to point out that there were two sexual innuendoes in that one sentence. Stay tuned folks, this is going to be a long one. Get it? Oh I’m such a card. But I digress… again.
Some of the scenes in the movie were either tongue-in-cheek with humor or it was just a hilarious coincidence. In one of the earlier scenes when Anastasia Weiner was leaving Grey’s office after a supposedly intense interview, she walked out into the rain. This could be looked at in one of two ways. The first being a much needed cold shower and the second being a more lascivious interpretation that I’ll leave to your imagination. I wouldn’t doubt that the producers or the director made some of these decisions on purpose. As for the non-funny scenes, let me put it this way. I usually work the four to midnight shift at work so I don’t usually get tired until about three in the morning. Twenty minutes into Fifty Shades and I was yawning and ready for bed. There was nothing to keep me engaged.
The plot is as thin as the riding crop Grey uses on Anastasia Purple Helmet Warrior in an attempt to punish her. What little plot there is goes out the window about forty minutes in and after that the movie goes like this: Sex, Should I be with you?, Sex, Do you want to be with me?, Sex, Can you handle this?, Sex, I don’t want to be with you. The end. There, I saved you the trouble of watching the movie. It’s all very cliche and predictable. The movie didn’t shock me or fool me even once. Everything was laid out so perfectly that it left no room for my imagination to wander. Anastasia Boner had a best friend who’s sole purpose was exposition. None of the the other characters were needed. They all could have been taken out entirely and with a few small tweaks it would have been the same movie.
At this point I don’t know what more I can say. Fifty Shades was so bad it deserves more than a spanking. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch this movie. If you’re curious then wait for it to come out on Netflix or Amazon Prime or one of those other services where you don’t have to buy it.
Fifty Shades of Grey gets a 2 out of 11