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| Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson |
Wes's Grade: D
Slick and dull, this love story is just "Fifty Shades of Meh"
The new romance "Fifty Shades of Grey" is prime example of a movie based on a shocking premise and an enormous amount of hype then comes up limp in execution. Neither shocking or titillating in any way, "Fifty Shades" is a vastly unsatisfying, boring love story, and those looking for a lot of action, well you'll be disappointed. The movie details a masochistic relationship between a college student named Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) and a wealthy young businessman named Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), whose desires for extreme intimacy pen from secrets in his past. Directed by Sam Taylor-Johnson ("Nowhere Boy"), written by Kelly Marcel and based on the worldwide, steamy bestseller of the same name by E.L James that threw millions of women into a tizzy yet was hardly a literary masterpiece, the slick but tedious "Fifty Shades of Grey" has some attractive leads but is mostly a limp, uninvolving affair that for a movie about S&M, has next to none in it, a remarkably tame event given its controversial premise. The glossy film sure does look good, but it lacks any twisted, playful fun and sheds very little light into Grey's backstory, and frustratingly so: "It's just the way I am!" is about as much as we get out of him, and he comes across as just a good-looking but depressed rich dude with an unusual hobby and special playroom. Dornan and Johnson (topless in many scenes, but that's about it) are both handsome enough, but the flavorless direction from Taylor-Johnson, who almost seems afraid of the source material, and the flat, redundant script from Marcel gives them little to do. There are a handful of mildly steamy, normal sex scenes, and the memorable Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden pops in a few minutes as Grey's adoptive mother, who seems much more fun to be around than her gloomy son. "Fifty Shades'" climax, a silly "give it to me so I can understand you more" type of thing, disappoints much more than you'd expect. "Fifty Shades of Grey" will do big business the first week out of curiosity seekers, but it should fall off heavily when word gets out what a crashing bore it is. Granted, this is a mainstream film with careful editing and discreetly handled camerawork needed to keep its R rating, and on that note, if you're looking for more excitement, you're better off renting some porn.
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