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Fifty Shades of Grey (2015)

Rate: 7
Viewed: 3/23

FiftySG
3/23: Fifty Shades of Grey is 9½ Weeks and The Thomas Crown Affair all rolled into one with some S&M thrown in for good measure.

It's also a "let's see where this goes" type of movie. Obviously, S&M means pain. A soft hit on the hand with a belt isn't going to cut it. Once the girl is seriously whipped on the buttocks, she suddenly decides that the whole thing isn't for her. My question at the moment is: should the movie have ended sooner during the first ten minutes? It's the only essential info she needed.

I skipped the hoopla when Fifty Shades of Grey first came out, but I had missed nothing. My initial prediction was 100% correct that it was 9½ Weeks all over again. The story is about the same with one big difference: 9½ Weeks is sensual while Fifty Shades of Grey is sexless. It's been robotic and devoid of human emotion.

Dakota Johnson is brave enough to take on the Kim Basinger-like role by being naked a lot, but unfortunately, she's neither attractive nor desirable. Now, I wonder what her parents (Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith) must have thought of the film. Entering the shoes of Mickey Rourke, Jamie Dornan is an odd choice due to his slanted eyes which keep throwing me off. To replace him, I had been thinking of Ryan Gosling or maybe Justin Timberlake. Both Dakota and Jamie have no chemistry, yet they're able to make the film work.

Outside of these two stars, there isn't a lot going on. 9½ Weeks had an incredible amount of New York minimalist backdrop which made it easy to discard everybody else because it was all about John and Elizabeth. Yet in Fifty Shades of Grey, there's little of the former but too much of the latter, adding nothing much to the story. At the same time, many questions are left unanswered.

All in all, Fifty Shades of Grey drops the ball by making it too close to 9½ Weeks while going soft on S&M.