Fifty Shades Darker (2017) Reviews

Hopefully, as a heterosexual female student in her twenties with a love of film that spreads across all genres and decades, this will come over as a fair assessment of a film that genuinely did nothing for me.

Like as was said in my review for 'Fifty Shades of Grey', have not read the books, though have heard conflicting opinions that has mostly been intense dislike. The reason for watching 'Fifty Shades Darker' was not due to wanting to hate on it, being a negative person, curiosity but for the reason of being at a film night with friends (who liked the books) recently and 'Fifty Shades Darker', like with 'Fifty Shades of Grey', happened to be the film choice. Just for the record, the general consensus ranged from indifference to hating it with a passion.

'Fifty Shades Darker' is a small improvement over its predecessor but not by much. The flaws are still the same but it's not as quite as near-irredeemably bad, and it at least tries to give some raunchy edge while not exactly succeeding.

Once again, the beguiling soundtrack, that has a soothing nostalgia and appropriately amorous quality, is the best thing about it. It also looks good, nice use of scenery and very nicely shot. There is one acting bright spot, which is Marcia Gay Harden who does very well with her role.

However, the same flaws are all here. Like 'Fifty Shades of Grey', Danny Elfman's score is one-note and repetitive, as well as too derivative of his recent work. He has composed some wonderful stuff ('Edward Scissorhands' is magical) but this is really not his best work. Despite the change of director, the directing style feels too mannered and there is a real sense that the director was ill-suited to material that is beneath him, after all he's done stuff like 'House of Cards' and 'Glengarry Glenn Ross'.

The rest of the supporting cast fail to stand out, with Kim Basinger having little to do, next to nothing actually. More problematic once more are the two leads, and the chemistry is next to zero once more. Understated can be a lovely quality to acting, as long as it also becomes nuanced and with believability given to the dialogue. Dakota Johnson, especially in the first third, is too understated that it feels more like there is a lack of personality or emotion. Jamie Dornan looks uncomfortable throughout, delivers his cringe-worthy lines awkwardly and is just bland as dishwater with no charisma whatsoever. Chemistry is non-existent.

Again, the dialogue does no favours, dialogue so bad that absolutely nobody (even the best actors and actresses) can do anything with it. It causes unintentional laughter throughout, is embarrassingly clunky and is pure smut. Then there is the story that is so thin structurally, heavy in repetition, so badly plodding and without style or atmosphere that the film feels twice as long. Even with attempts to give more raunchiness and kinkiness, as well as edge, none of it comes over naturally, feeling horribly contrived. The rest of it is done far too tamely and the BDSM portrayal is still deceitful. The characters are little more than ciphers.

Overall, a small improvement but still pretty dreadful even when giving it a fair chance. 2/10 Bethany Cox

I wasn't expecting much from this flick but I have to admit that I was curious to see if it really deserved its terrible reputation. Well, to be honest, even if it was pretty weak, I don't think it was so bad. The main issue remains that, even though Dakota Johnson was a perfect choice for this role, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey were still such a boring couple. At least, this time around, Grey finally figured out that he had to leave behind his preferred lifestyle if he wanted to be with the love of his life and it made their relationship so much healthier than in the previous movie. However, as a result, there was basically no conflict whatsoever to solve and, since there was not really a plot either, well, nothing much really happened through the whole duration. Finally, the most disappointing thing was probably the fact that, even though this movie was sold as a supposedly kinky sexy affair, it turned out to be incredibly tame after all. Sure, Dakota Johnson was often topless but there was no frontal nudity from either of them. In fact, the sex scenes were short, not really kinky whatsoever and very often with way too many clothes involved. Finally, I thought it was supposed to be about SM but there were in fact only 3 really soft scenes which seemed to me to be more some playful sex than some actual SM. Anyway, to conclude, I can't say I was really disappointed since I had such low expectations but there is no denying that this franchise wasted a great opportunity to properly introduce SM practices to the mainstream audience. 

Initial Thought: Yes I am watching this. Yes the first one was pretty awful. I just have a glutton for punishment. Oh my I didn't mean for that to come out like that. Well it's out there now. The addition of Kim Basinger is certainly a plus in my book. Can it be worse or better?

Characters/Acting: Anastasia is still such a nonsense character. Her decisions make no sense and everything she says she ignores herself. Dakota Johnson though has this girl next door attractiveness about her though which I do admire. Christian Grey is still uber creepy, but it does seem Jamie Dornan is trying this time for some reason. Eric Johnson is still the crybaby Whitney from Smallville after all this time. Rita Ora and Maxt Martini need more screentime please. Jose just keeps getting creepier so I don't understand how he is a friend. Kim Basinger in my opinion can still keep my attention. Will be curious how she is dealt with in the third and hopefully final part.

Story: Um Twilight again without the glitter vampires and replaced with Sadomasochism with a guy who needs serious help. It kind of reminds of the sad bit I hear when women don't want to leave their abusive lover due to how he treats her when he is in a good mood or something like that. It's just the first one again with no real difference other than adding a few new crazy characters. They try to put in some drama near the end that really has no effect. In fact it could have been better had they ended it without that resolution.

Directing/Writing: E.L. James has to be the luckiest fan fiction writer there is. To have her stories become wide sellers and become movies is insane. I give her props for that, but they are just as awful if not worse than Twilight themselves. James Foley is known for directing Fear and Perfect Stranger which actually fit well along with this. They both dealt with psychopaths and infatuation or "love". It's too bad because those were awesome and this just isn't. I don't blame Foley for that as he does have talent. This is the first movie written by Niall Leonard who will be writing the next one as well. Here's to hoping they can do something interesting with it.

Final Thoughts: Yeah I knew it would be bad. Still Dakota Johnson is cute enough to keep my attention and I like Kim Basinger a lot. So I guess it could have been much worse. Surprisingly it's not awful, but I still don't understand why some actually like these. In my opinion this shouldn't exist, but hey it gives people like me hope if I were to actually finish something. It's worth only a skip unless you are into this sort of thing.