Ranking right behind “New England Patriots playoff run” on a personal list of things I couldn’t wait to see come to an end in 2018 is the Fifty Shades of Grey franchise. Yeah, it’s Valentine’s Day, so the Fifty Shades circus has come to town to show us, once again, what one has to do to wipe clean any good first impression a person might have. Despite the warning from Forever My Girl, Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) get married to open the film. Dudes, have you learned nothing? Where do you go from opening credits marriage?
Oh, silly me, I plum forgot the source material was inspired by Twilight, a land where you can make a tepid controversy out of anything if you squeeze it hard enough. Why here they are in the French Riviera and Anastasia has decided to go topless along with the natives. Uh oh, Mr. Grey doesn’t play that. Upon returning home, Anastasia discovers she’s been promoted. I wonder how well that sits with her co-workers, huh? Married the big boss and already promoted well beyond her experience level. Damn, nepotism this ugly approaches Jared and Ivanka levels. However, all is not well at soon-to-be-named Anastasia Publishing House; Anastasia has failed to change her email to anastasia.GREY@thisfranchisesucks.com. Christian don’t play that, either.
Seriously, movie, make up your mind. How is it behind the scenes, Christian can’t wait for the Bondage Games to take place, but away from his house, he becomes Mike Pence? These two things are completely incompatible. Well, that is except if you see them in the light of control issues. Insisting upon control is always an excellent way to start a marriage. Speaking of which, the baby thing comes up as an issue, too. Yeah, that plot line isn’t tired at all.
Just a sec, I need to be serious here: NEVER NEVER NEVER go into a marriage without settling three things: 1) Children 2) Religion 3) Politics. I can’t call myself an expert on relations by any means, but I do know that if you are incompatible in any of these realms, your marriage will suffer, a lot, and likely forever.
Luckily, these are all “movie” issues, which is to say these are controversies that in reality would erode trust and lead to divorce, but in the world of bad screenplays, the disparity over who wants a child and who doesn’t is easily settled with one fabricated action sequence. Here, of course, Fifty Shades is Freed to show off its true colors. It must be wonderful living in a world where you have so much money you never have to see any ugly people of any kind. All the employees, business partners, and even enemies of Christian Grey are model-level pretty and under the age 35. “Mom, what are you doing here? You’re violating my pretty world.”
My current thesis is Christian Grey is going bankrupt and hasn’t yet broken it to Anastasia. How else do you explain the clearly incompetent bodyguards? Or the fact that one lone guy broke into his exclusive high-tech modern penthouse without so much as an alarm going off? Or the part where Christian Grey has clearly hired a part-time model as his “architect?” Or the part where
he promoted a brand new and completely inexperienced employee to upper management? Or the fact that the multi-billionaire jet-setter never works? Why, there’s barely even any bondage or sex toy abuse in this version … I think something is troubling Christian and that something is that he’s Fifty Shades of Broke.
Come to think of it, Christian going bankrupt would actually be a much better storyline than anything presented to me. Anybody can love a rich person. I don’t even need to present a single example and you know it’s true. But what if Christian is broke, and he’s still all up in your grill with his massive control issues? Show me that marriage working and I’ll imagine for three seconds this franchise is something more than an immature fantasy. As for the sex in this film … well, it’s there, and it’s racy in fury and pace, yet tame by the established Fifty Shades standards of instructive pleasure for the sex toy impaired. By now, we’ve seen it.
It’s time to shade fifty again
My patience is long down the drain
“We’re having a baby”
And I’m thinking, maybe,
“The S&M has become ball & chain”
Rated R, 105 Minutes
Director: James Foley
Writer: Niall Leonard
Genre: Bondage sex, except for the bondage part
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The people who advertise for this film
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Viewers
