Review - "Fifty Shades Darker"

Fifty Shades Darker - directed by James Foley

Starring: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Marcia Gay Harden, Kim Basinger, Max Martini, Luke Grimes, Bella Heathcote, Rita Ora, Eloise Mumford, Eric Johnson, Victor Rasuk, Bruce Altman, Andrew Airlie, Ashleigh LaThrop, Julia Dominczak

Screenplay: Niall Leonard  

Music Score by: Danny Elfman

Cinematography: John Schwartzman

Edited by: Richard Francis-Bruce
Running Time: 117 minutes
Language: English
Rated: R18- Profanity, nudity (standard boobs and bums), sex scenes

Without a word of a lie I had a blast with this film.
I mean I really, really enjoyed it.
A lot of it was because I was lucky enough to see it in a premium cinema for a bargain price.
Some of it was because I had a pretty good hotdog and sliders platter.
But mostly I had such a good time watching "Fifty Shades Darker" because it is really, really, really bad.
I mean godawful.
Horrific.
Batshit.
But so, so much fun.
I don't recall being as animated at a movie as I was at this one.
I went from hands on mouth cringing to laugh out loud giddy to squirm in the seat disbelief at what I was hearing.
I say hearing deliberately because whatever crimes this film commits against the viewer visual is not one of them.
No, no.... the pain is all to the ears.
And appropriately for a movie with sadomasochistic sex at its core this film hurts so good!

A brief history lesson for the sake of context now because I need to explain why I am finding it so hard to put a score on "Fifty Shades Darker" and also I want to justify the score I do place on it.

I only saw the first film in this series yesterday.
With some time left away from work after the Oscars (which I watch every year) I scored a reasonably cheap Blu-ray copy of "Fifty Shades of Grey".
I have only ever been slightly interested in seeing it for three reasons.

1) I like Dakota Johnson a lot.
2) It is very popular and I like to know what the fuss is about with movies even if the movie itself is not my kind of 'thing'.  I have nothing but good things to say about any franchise that finds an audience (even if I don't like the films)
3) I heard that it was so bad it was almost good.  (Someone told me about the XBox line when Grey tells Anastasia about his fun room and I sort of didn't believe him but it is true.... praise Buddha it is true!!)

So I watched the damned thing yesterday and it was clear very quickly that this film is not intended for me.
Obviously it is intended for a female audience and clearly between the ages of 18 and.... I don't know - 60?
Also, with this realisation in mind - I didn't hate it.
I got bored with it about halfway in but thanks to Dakota Johnson being straight up gorgeous I stuck it out.
And yes- it is pretty awful in many ways.
But of course completist that I am I suddenly considered the possibility of then watching the recently released follow up.
Which of course I did - as is indicated by this post.
And by comparison "Fifty Shades Darker" makes "Fifty Shades of Grey" look like the good movie it really isn't.

Yes, I know- looks sexy doesn't it?...... it isn't.  

Despite having a very good director, an excellent cinematographer and an accomplished editor on board this film is utterly dreadful.
The first film suffers from terrible dialogue and severely underwritten characters.
Oh, and there isn't a plot..... at all.
Well these problems get ratcheted up by a factor of ten for the sequel (or is that down?)
Sure- it is a very good looking movie.
It is nicely shot and certainly better edited than its continuity issue laden predecessor.
But the dialogue is even worse this time and nothing that the characters do or say makes any kind of sense at all.
Anastasia Steele is apparently a smart, strong willed career woman who up until Christian Grey set his smarmy, cash filled mitts on her was a virgin.
Even though she has zero sexual experience she falls in with a guy who just wants to hurt her.
Not metaphorically mind you- literally.
Now aware of this and having walked out on him in pretentiously dull fashion at the end of the first film Christian is nonetheless able to convince her to get back in the saddle (again- not a metaphor)
She tells him that she will not have any of his saucy shenanigans and that is the condition that they will resume their relationship.
Bear in mind that she describes these shenanigans as 'Kinky Fuckery' which is not a store that sells Japanese furniture but the goings on in his special red room.
And now we come to possibly the most baffling failing of this film.
Even if the characters are shallow and underdeveloped and even if the dialogue that they spout is laugh out loud dumb you would think that the sex scenes would be worth a look?
Surely they are the reason that these films exist?
At least one of the selling points?
Well, believe it or not the sexy scenes in the first film are far saucier than they are in this one.
There is nothing remotely as kinky going on here as you would think based on the apparent damaged depravity that Christian Grey is subject to.
There is a scene where he slips a set of ben wa balls into Anastasia's um... secret garden... but the whole thing is preceded by an hilarious line where she thinks he is aiming for a different 'door' and is set to a jaunty tune so out of sync with the scene that it makes the whole thing feel less sexy and more like one of those sequences where a bunch of clowns try to cram into a Mini Cooper.
So no- this movie is not sexy in the slightest when it comes to the sex scenes.

Dakota Johnson on the other hand is crazy sexy.
She is effortlessly, naturally beautiful and is slipped into (and out of) a host of very flattering outfits.
Most notably a stockings and suspenders number and a red dress that would make Freud tremble with delight.
Jamie Dornan as Christian Grey however often doesn't even take his suit pants off even when they are in the middle of allegedly passionate rumpy pumpy.

The lovely Dakota Johnson's talent is no match for the utterly horrible dialogue and characterisation

Which brings me to the third problem.
I'm a guy and if I am given far more to look at in a film aimed at a female audience isn't this a problem?
Shouldn't the long pervy gaze camera shots be focused on Christian's chest, abs and backside?
Isn't this what the lady viewer wants?
Do they really want to look at a woman through his eyes?
Maybe I'm wrong - perhaps the film places Johnson's Anastasia as a proxy for the female viewer and they feel his gaze on them instead.
Maybe... but I don't think so.
This film could have been genuinely daring.
It is R18 but other than some slightly smutty and frank sexual chat none of the 'kinky fuckery' that Anastasia alluded to really happens.
She gets a steel rod strapped to her ankles and is flipped onto her back via the device but this scene like every other one seems to show Anastasia in raptures at the slightest touch from Christian while he appears completely bored and unsatiated by the whole thing.
There is absolutely nothing remotely daring or boundary pushing about the sex scenes in this movie and given that this is so central to the appeal of the property it is baffling.

Bear in mind that while these sex scenes come at a pretty regular pace there is absolutely no plot going on around them.
There is a lot of what appears to be exposition and setting up for things down the line but very few come to fruition and those that do can be spotted a mile away.
There is an ex-girlfriend who pops up to frighten Anastasia periodically and the family friend who taught Christian all of his 'kinky fuckery' lurks about too but neither character matters a damn to the story here.
Even when something does happen that could count as plot it is so clumsily set up that you know something is coming and when it does.... wow.....
In a jaw-droppingly inept moment Christian crashes his helicopter and Anastasia and his family gather in his apartment to await news of the rescue attempts.
And suddenly right in the middle of this with the tv still showing the rescuers looking for him the man himself strides in as if he has forgotten his keys.
Laugh out loud hilarious.
If you thought Bruce Wayne finding his way back into the tightly locked down Gotham in "The Dark Knight Rises" was far fetched you ain't seen nothing yet!

Poor old Jamie Dornan has to play Christian as damaged yet desirable but there is no way any woman with half a brain would put up with the host of psychological issues that he comes with.
No discernible plot and a damaged, unsympathetic male love interest could have been offset with a strong female lead but Anastasia is a bafflingly empty woman.
Her insistence that the resumption of the relationship with Christian be conditional on his behaving normally is accepted by him completely.
But it is she who pushes for more slap than tickle and he who refuses telling her that she doesn't want that side to come out.
But she pushes him and then when he shows her more of that side of him she is repulsed!
Possibly Anastasia is playing some sort of sadomasochistic long game tease but then that would be to give screenwriter Niall Leonard way more credit than is due.
(Note that he is the real life husband of the author of the books E L James)
Either way this character is every bit as messed up as Christian is in her own way.
I realise that the angle here seems to be that she will ultimately fix him which is probably the real reason for the appeal of these movies ('He's a bad boy but if only you knew him like I do!')

Spare a thought for Marcia Gay Harden, Kim Basinger, Luke Grimes and Max Martini - they are all good actors

So let's tally up so far....
Terrible characters.
Awful dialogue.
Un-sexy sex scenes.
Zero plot.
Ridiculous events that make no sense (special mention to the world's WORST Human Resources lady who not only doesn't stop a looming attempted sexual harassment/ rape but is complicit in it!)
How could this not be a huge amount of fun?
Honestly- I loved every second of this film because it is in every way imaginable a total, complete disaster.
But given that it provided two hours of giddy entertainment how should it be scored?
As a film it is as close to a teen to early twenty as I have ever seen.  In filmmaking terms it only has nice cinematography going for it.
But as a slice of entertainment a case could be made for a high eighty.
You can't complain when a film makes you beam with joy for  solid two hours - regardless of the reason.
So given that I had fun and visually it is very good looking (including the lovely Dakota) I am going to split the difference and call it a 50.
But please bear in mind that it is also kind of an 85 but also really a 15.

RATING: 50 / 100

CONCLUSION:  Watching the first film I felt sorry for Dakota Johnson who deserves material far more suited to her considerable talent than that drivel.  This time my pity was all for director James Foley who can make great films ("At Close Range", "Glengarry Glen Ross") but in this instance was basically handed a 'hospital pass'... material so dire that he must have surely just quietly mouthed the words 'think of the money James' just before he called 'action' on each and every scene. Predictable, risible garbage.