Review of Fifty Shades Darker (2017) by Andrewburge — 12 Nov 2018

'Fifty Shades Darker' pretty much retains all the problems of its prequel: long, boring, empty and repeated scenes which all say the same thing except with a different lavish product-placement filled background. But this time there is no mystery, and the few new characters that are presented to us are barely given any focus.

This is a new problem this film has. It wastes its focus on the wrong parts. Sure, Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) and Christian (Jamie Dornan) are the main characters, but the subject of Christian's condition is so milked that they simply have nothing to talk about and instead they repeat the same subjects and conversations over and over again. Occasionally we get a sex scene, of course, but they are all the same, yet treated with such attention that we are sucked into their void. "Take me to the red room" - Anastasia says at some point like its a big deal. She already was there.

But back to the nude scenes. I thought of counting them, but then I remembered my lazy bottom didn't bother to count the number of cuts in 'Werckmeister Harmonies', a film I gave a 10; so, out of respect (and the fact that I didn't really care, to be honest) I didn't. The number is not important. At how boring these scenes are even two are too many. And there were more; that I know. I mean, I am a 22-year-old sexual hormone-filled teenager, and I am honestly sick of seeing Dakota Johnson nude stumbling around Christian Grey's opulent apartment/mansion/castle-whatever.

But back to the nude scenes again (or rather one of them). In the scene where he finally takes her to the "infamous" red room, yet again we are presented with a boring, safe sex scene. I mean, he's got all that stuff lying around. Is like that episode of Looney Tunes where the rat exterminator comes in, proceeds to lay out all his tools on the floor, and then only uses a tiny trap and then leaves. That was funny and this scene was too (like many scenes), but here I don't believe the humor is intentional.

There are three characters which are interesting: that is Leila (Bella Heathcote), a physically harmed girl coming to take vengeance on Anastasia; Eric Johnson giving a pretty good performance as Jack Hyde, Anastasia's boss and Kim Basinger as Elena Lincoln, the woman who first exposed Christian to sado-masochism. But we barely get any focus on them. Leila only appears in three scenes: first, a brief meet with Anastasia then she goes full Batman mode watching Christian and Anastasia sleep (I am still wondering how she got into the apartment) and her 'reveal' is a huge let-down. Same can be said for the rest of the characters.

In the end, I guess the reason director James Foley decided to do this, was to artificially extend the plot and to make this a trilogy. This might be a good business move, but its a shameless one when it comes to the art. Yet there were moments, minutes literally, where 'Fifty Shades Darker' peaked my interest - like the scene in which Christian shows his dark side when Anastasia meets Leila or when she is harassed by Jack. But these are way too brief and instead we get a rich and empty showcase of opulence. This film could have been more. This really is a waste.