Went to see the final Fifty Shades film Fifty Shades Freed. The joke running around is that it’s 50 Shades Freed for star Dakota Johnson (and Jamie Dorman). Finally free of the contractual obligation of gratuitous (but not too gratuitous) nude scenes and un-erotic (not-even-soft-core-porn really) movies. Now she (and he) can get on with their careers since she (and maybe he) is better than this material.
Not that I (continue) to think these 50 Shades movies are the crime against cinema critics say they are. They aren’t produced and acted bad enough to be truly terrible. They also aren’t campy enough to be a lot of fun. The writing may not be great and there’s about five too many dull sex scenes getting in the way of a very limited story randomly spiced up with a kidnapping subplot. So, in some sense, more happens in this film than the others if, by more, you mean danger and suspense awkwardly added to give the movie somewhere to go.
It’s surprising to me that the movie is at its best when it’s just a conventional romantic drama. The two l leads are now married and faced with the rest of their lives… and the prospect of whether they want to have children. And whether or not Mr. Grey can chill the f out and stop being such a domineering jerk. No, none of this is amazing or anything but I think the leads sell the dialog well enough to invest me a little.
But the movie also wants to at least try to be the sexy, erotic thriller that the books are alleged to be. The books are outright pornography with tons of detail and description (each sex scene is just as graphic as the last). This film barely seems to care about that except when it comes time to forward some of the elements of the relationship drama. But there are still too many eye-rolling, “not this again!” scenes. They aren’t erotic… they are boring and vanilla.
But the movie ALSO wants to be a suspense thriller with the evil Jack Hyde (could he have been anything else?) stalking the couple for his own, mysterious, nefarious purpose. The movie sometimes remember this is the plot before going back to the romance it wants to be. It does ultimately wind up in a kidnapping potboiler that they resolve super quickly (a literal Checkov’s gun comes into play).
So the series is over… I doubt they’ll be able to get the leads back even if they wanted to continue the story. There are no more books (except one where the same story is told from his POV) so hopefully that’s it. Hollywood might want to create a brand new erotic thriller (as if it were the 90s) and they are welcome to it. Maybe they can make a better one now that they are tied to a mediocre book series.
Score: 72