50 Shades Darker Reviewed
50 Shades Darker knows what kind of movie it is and what its audience is looking for. After all, this is a movie about female sexuality, from a woman who just wanted to imagine a kinkier world of Edward and Bella and share it with the world via fan fiction. So why not give the people what they want? And I'll tell you now, by the amount of hooting and hollering going on in the theater, I would say the audience got it.
50 Shades Darker takes place a couple months after the events of Fifty Shades of Grey. Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) has moved on and is now working for a different company. But Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) hasn't been able to let go and will do anything to get her back, even if that means giving up his lifestyle of S&M for a more vanilla kind of relationship.
Both actors do better this time around, and for the first half of the movie they actually possess a little chemistry. In terms of on-screen presence, Dakota Johnson is definitely the strength of the movie. No question she's a very charming actress and is able to vary her performance from meek to emboldened depending on what that page of the script she was on. While she shares some sparks in the beginning of the movie with her co-star, somehow by the end of the movie it runs out, as does Jamie Dornan's sense of believability. For whatever reason Dornan regresses to his previous performance-style and he becomes not only stiff but a bit comical.
Hands down the best part about the movie is the soundtrack. By now most of us have heard the Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik song, “I Don't Wanna Live Forever” but the entire soundtrack is full of sultry, contemporary hits. Any time there is a long shot of a romantic setting or our lead characters are about to bang, the filmmakers slide in a song to let us know how exactly to feel. Normally this would annoy me, but the music was so good and matched the tone so well I’m going to give it a pass because it accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Kudos.
50 Shades Darker takes place a couple months after the events of Fifty Shades of Grey. Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) has moved on and is now working for a different company. But Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) hasn't been able to let go and will do anything to get her back, even if that means giving up his lifestyle of S&M for a more vanilla kind of relationship.
Both actors do better this time around, and for the first half of the movie they actually possess a little chemistry. In terms of on-screen presence, Dakota Johnson is definitely the strength of the movie. No question she's a very charming actress and is able to vary her performance from meek to emboldened depending on what that page of the script she was on. While she shares some sparks in the beginning of the movie with her co-star, somehow by the end of the movie it runs out, as does Jamie Dornan's sense of believability. For whatever reason Dornan regresses to his previous performance-style and he becomes not only stiff but a bit comical.
Hands down the best part about the movie is the soundtrack. By now most of us have heard the Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik song, “I Don't Wanna Live Forever” but the entire soundtrack is full of sultry, contemporary hits. Any time there is a long shot of a romantic setting or our lead characters are about to bang, the filmmakers slide in a song to let us know how exactly to feel. Normally this would annoy me, but the music was so good and matched the tone so well I’m going to give it a pass because it accomplished exactly what it set out to do. Kudos.
The movie does its best to inject a little conflict into the story: some past exes are introduced, possible romantic rivals, and something about a helicopter. But everything gets explained away so fast that it’s almost like director James Foley is telling you, “Listen we know they're going to be fine, so let me just get back to the sex.”
We all know what you came here to see. It’s the same thing I was looking for when I turned on HBO as a young teenager, and that is some softcore porn. And this movie has it in spades. But if I can offer one suggestion, I would tell you not to sit next to your older co-worker and her husband who happened to also get movie passes from your radio station. If this happens, then you will have to watch him squeeze her upper thigh every time it’s about to get kinky. (As we were walking out they told me they really enjoyed the movie.)
Without a doubt the weirdest part of the movie, weirder than whatever happened in the Red Room and the amount of Dakota Johnson breasts we see, is that for some reason in his childhood bedroom Christian Grey has a movie poster for The Chronicles of Riddick. This is a character that grew up in a lavish home where he could have anything. So why The Chronicles of Riddick? It must have been clear from a young age that he was really into torturing himself. (D; C+ if you are into this sort of thing)
We all know what you came here to see. It’s the same thing I was looking for when I turned on HBO as a young teenager, and that is some softcore porn. And this movie has it in spades. But if I can offer one suggestion, I would tell you not to sit next to your older co-worker and her husband who happened to also get movie passes from your radio station. If this happens, then you will have to watch him squeeze her upper thigh every time it’s about to get kinky. (As we were walking out they told me they really enjoyed the movie.)
Without a doubt the weirdest part of the movie, weirder than whatever happened in the Red Room and the amount of Dakota Johnson breasts we see, is that for some reason in his childhood bedroom Christian Grey has a movie poster for The Chronicles of Riddick. This is a character that grew up in a lavish home where he could have anything. So why The Chronicles of Riddick? It must have been clear from a young age that he was really into torturing himself. (D; C+ if you are into this sort of thing)
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