The worst thing about “Fifty Shades Freed” isn’t that it reinforces constrictive gender norms. I guess no matter how likable Johnson is, no one can get away with the line “boobs in boob-land.” Except maybe Megan from Drake and Josh.Īnd that would be a different kind of movie altogether. Her curls get bouncier with every scene, but nothing else changes.

We get poor Dakota Johnson stuck, acting naked in a walk-in rainshower. Save for the first few scenes and random sprinklings in the middle. The grayness of Grey is worrisome in today’s - hopefully more - consensual landscape.Īnd for a movie that focuses on sex, there’s really not much of it.

It was just a bad movie.īut what can you do if fans demand you stick to the book? The grayness of the story’s setting, Seattle, is sexier on the page. I didn’t hear them say a word to each other. Singles… and a couple sharing a large popcorn and soda. However, the patrons were mostly parents with kids there for “Peter Rabbit.” Besides a couple of GNO groups, singles scattered the theater. I saw the film on opening night, and the ticket line was packed. Unfinished conflicts and too-rosy tiffs.Īlmost six years after the film’s namesake book was released, I have to ask: who was this movie for?īecause the tweens that secretly read it also began reading Rupi Kaur and can see that main-man Christian Grey is kind of a creep.Īnd is there any way that the sexually unsatisfied older readers have held on for this long? A peek at a Tiffany Charm bracelet without a backstory for the baubles, a semi-thought-out kidnapping and sticky-in-a-bad-way Ben and Jerry’s foreplay. Instead, I got almost two hours of jumping from one - either hyper or less-than-desired - dramatic scenario to another. Beautiful lingerie, frivolity and bad pop culture references.

I’ve listened to the soundtracks (the Zayn Malik and Taylor Swift duet “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” is a highlight), and felt Dakota Johnson was an excellent choice to play main character Anastasia Steele.īut when I sit through a movie like this, I want what’s advertised. I read the books (on a Kindle so as not to worry my mom), and giggled through the first movie with my girlfriends. I was, at one point, intrigued by the Fifty Shades trilogy.

Get my popcorn fifty shades of grey