Cinema: Fifty Shades of Grey

DISCLAIMER: All videos and images in this review are copyrighted to their respective owners.

Summary:
Meet Anastasia Steele. Also known as Ana, she is a college major studying English Literature. When her roommate falls sick, she takes it upon herself to substitute for her as a school newspaper reporter. This leads Ana to meet and interview Christian Grey, a young and wealthy entrepreneur. For Ana, this changes her life forever and introduces her to a....certain side....of Christian's life, and she discovers more to Christian than he let on...

----------------------------------------------
I'm not a fan of the romance genre.

Which is not to say that I hate romance stories or they are bad, it's just that I'm not in any rush to watch, read, or listen to one as soon as they come out, especially since they pretty much follow the same formula 95% of the time. I suppose, to me, romance as a genre really only works if it's paired up with another genre or if its more of a story element than the main focus of the film. Heck, one of my favorite classic movies is Audrey Hepburn's Sabrina, a movie that has a love triangle as the focus, but is bolstered by some genuine funny moments, good acting, and good writing. It's the movie that immediately springs to my mind when I think of romantic comedies.

Or heck, my love for Disney movies is another example, with my two favorite Disney movies of all time, Frozen and Beauty and the Beast, having romance and love as an essential part of their narrative. But again, it's not as if the love story is all that carries the movie. Heck anyone who has seen Frozen will know how that movie tackles romance. TV shows and other movies where I care about the romance include the Star Wars movies, Gone with the Wind, Back to the Future III, Harry Potter, various incarnations of Gundam, the two shows of Nickeloden's Avatar, Star Trek, and Doctor Who. In Internet circles, support for fictional characters getting together is called "shipping".

 

But you get the idea, right? I'm all for romance in stories, but not if they're ALL that the story is about or is the main focus. As such, I'm not in any hurry to read romance stories or watch romance movies and TV shows. I'm not into Chick Flicks, romantic dramas, and most romantic comedies because I'm not a guy who takes his "man card" very seriously, it's because oftentimes romance stories are just shallow, not written well, or are just plain boring. Name any work by Nicholas Sparks, or show me stuff like Mamma Mia!, A Walk to Remember, The Fault in Our Stars, Twilight (ESPECIALLY Twilight) or the quadrillion original Filipino movies that seem to be nothing BUT romance movies, and I won't watch them under normal circumstances.

Which brings us to the subject of today's review: Fifty Shades of Grey.

 

For those who are only aware of the book's infamy and not much else, here's this book's origins. Fifty Shades of Grey was written by British author E.L. James. It was originally a Twilight fanfiction written on Fanfiction.net that, for one reason or another, was eventually turned into an actual book in 2011 after removing all the Twilight elements. Once reworked, it was split into two parts: Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed. Despite it being a chart-topping bestseller and being popular among women, reception to the book has been extremely negative, with critiques pointing out the poorly written narrative, characters that have almost no personality, and the slow "torture" of Ana's inner monologues.

And then there's main criticism of the book, the one subject that had people up in arms and was a major subject of controversy when the movie came out: its depiction of Bondage, Discipline, Sadism, and Masochism (BDSM) when Ana and Christian have sex. I personally can't offer my opinion on this matter because I don't know a whole lot about it, and I don't have any interest in doing any research on it. But needless to say, there are tons of write-ups on that. Feel free to read those.

I first became aware of Fifty Shades of Grey through Internet celebrity Doug Walker (as his character, The Nostalgia Critic), and his review of the movie Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2. In the review, he uses a copy of Fifty Shades of Grey as a running gag, which culminates in him and other Internet personalities quoting the dialogue and Ana's monologues in different voices, like Mickey Mouse, Liam Neeson, Zoidberg from Futurama, and Nicholas Cage.

Aside from that, I knew absolutely nothing about the book. I had no idea who the characters were, what the story was about, why the heck the book's monologues were so easy to mock, and the controversies surrounding it. I saw the books sold out in the open at places like National Book Store and Fully Booked (Filipino book chains for readers living outside of the Philippines), remembered that they were pretty much literary porn, and kept walking. So naturally, when I heard news that the book was getting a movie adaptation, I rolled my eyes and scoffed at how it was going to end up being a huge massive stinker yet will make an inordinate amount of money at the box office. At the beginning of this year I posted my movie slate for 2015, and Fifty Shades of Grey was certainly not on there.

However, I eventually decided to give it a try. Partly because of curiosity, partly because of stepping out of my comfort zone and watching/reviewing a romance movie, and partly because its topical. Because I've heard of nothing but awful things about Fifty Shades of Grey, from the dozens of articles on the BDSM controversy, to the news of it being banned and censored across the world, I walked into the cinema expecting something truly awful; a movie that makes you truly sick and disgusted for watching it, a film that could be considered the worst movie ever made. I was fully ready to give it a grand score of 0/5, or even a 0.1 just to be generous.

And surprisingly, I didn't get that. To give my short thoughts on the film, it's still bad to be sure. The BDSM element is indeed present and makes you feel very uncomfortable whenever it comes up, and the story is extremely dull and boring, with characters that are non-entities with very little personality and character motivations. BUT, and this is a big BUT, it's certainly not the worst movie ever made. There IS a very tiny, miniscule speck of interest in the movie, and it is certainly unpredictable. I felt that the two leads did OK with what were given to them.

It's bad, but it's not mind-blowingly bad.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

First thing to talk about are the two actors. Ana was played by Dakota Johnson, who was in the likes of The Social Network and 21 Jump Street. Christian was played by Jamie Dornan, who was in the TV show Once Upon a Time. As I said, I felt that their acting was OK and just there. They weren't particularly amazing, or bad, they were just there. And I do not wish ill of them for being in this movie and hopefully they'll have chances for better roles in the future. With perhaps a few exceptions, I don't believe in bad acting, just bad direction. Sometimes actors and actresses are given bad scripts, and I think the two leads salvaged what they could with their characters, who were as I said, almost non-existent entities that had almost nothing going for them.

The rest of the actors and their roles in the movie?

Then there's the "story". Emphasis on the quotation marks because in my opinion, when it comes to romance movies, there really is only one story: whether or not the love interests will get together, and hope that there will be some specks of interesting things to either enjoy or just laugh at. In this movie's case, I think "speck" would be an overstatement. Basically, throughout the movie, we see Ana cope with graduating college, living with her roommate, moving to a new city, and having heart-to-heart's with her mom. Majority of the actual drama though is her relationship with Christian and the various unorthodox practices, curiosities, and whether or not he really wants to be with him. As one can expect, it is BORING, DULL, and makes you want to fall asleep. I swear, I would have fallen asleep too if not for the one ATOM of interest that is in the movie. 99.98% of the film is just a massive snorefest, with .01% being the sex scenes and the various depictions of BDSM, and the other .01% being the characters's psychology.

You see, there is an actual reason why Christian is like what he is. It is implied that he had an extremely rough childhood, and he was introduced to BDSM by a "friend" of his mother. It is that bits of character backstory that sort of gives that atom of interest life throughout the whole movie, because you're just so curious about finding out more. And considering that the rest of the movie is so lifeless anyway, you cling onto that atom of interest. Near the end of the movie we also witness Christian start to break down at the end because of an unspecified phone call that gives him bad news. Just what is going on with Christian? Why is he suddenly turning sour? Did Ana have anything to do with it? Sure we've seen their relationship be extremely up and down through the movie, but is this the breaking point? JUST WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON IN THIS VERY TINY INTERESTING THING?

And of course, we don't find out any of this stuff, because in the lamest way to end the movie, with no indication, no climax, NOTHING to indicate that the movie is about to reach its conclusion, Ana and Christian part ways with an elevator door closing in-between them. They say their names one last time, and then...

I kid you not, there was a sound of confusion and laughter among the audience in the theater I was watching it with.

Final thoughts:
Fifty Shades of Grey is bad. Very bad. But at the same time it's certainly not the worst movie ever made. It's really more boring than bad with some very tiny hints of interesting things that make you ask questions. But at the same time, I suppose that was what my problem was with the movie. It's sooooo boring that it's bad.

You've got movies like, say, The Room, Sharknado, or Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, which were intentionally made to be funny and dumb movies that nobody took seriously, that they were just made for laughs. But Fifty Shades of Grey, considering its unworthy popularity and infamy, was likely made to be completely serious. As a result we get a movie that has very little going for it when it comes to characters, story, or charm. It's a very boring flick with a touch of disgust, and a touch of interest. And you better hope that interest will get grab your attention, otherwise you're in for the long haul.

Guys, if you're forced against your will to see this, have your phones and/or portable gaming devices on standby. Only reason I didn't resort to that is because I was legitimately curious about where the story was going. And considering that I read up what happens in the two following stories...I have no reason to watch their movie adaptations now.

My score: 1.1/5
---------------------------
Before I get to my trailer thoughts, I just have one question. WHY were majority of the trailers attached to this R rated movie G and PG-13 movies?

Trailer thoughts:
Shaun the Sheep: The Movie-Because THIS is the perfect thing to show before Fifty Shades of Grey, right? A movie based off a children's claymation show! Not going to see it in theaters.

The Fast & The Furious 7-Beyond watching the movie for the cool cars and cool car stunts and hot babes, your pretty much watching the first six Fast & The Furious movies. I've only ever seen the second movie ages ago, so someone who's a fan of the series, please enlighten me why they keep making these movies. Definitely not going to see in theaters.

CHAPPiE-Same thoughts as when I saw this attached to Into the Woods. Not going to see it in theaters.

Terminator: Genysis-I like the Terminator movies to varying degrees, and I admit I'm kinda curious how this reboot will go. May see it in theaters.

Cinderella-I will give this trailer some credit in showcasing how this version of Cinderella will be different from the Disney animated version, but it's still not enough to hook me. Not going to see it in theaters.