Despite Johnson’s continued efforts to give a dorky, witty charm to Anastasia, the relationship she shares with Dornan throughout this series is awkward and stiff in all the wrong ways. They barely register as fond acquaintances, let alone deeply passionate, intensely intimate lovers. Like before, these leads share a chemistry more comparable to mold on food than anything resembling intuitively developed lovers in the midst of emotionally erotic distress. The sex scenes strenuously look like work for the actors, and that instantly evaporates any-and-all energy within the room. But it’s more hollow and less stimulating than anything even mildly provoking in the first installment. The camera is quick to leer at these sexy leads, watching each amorous development unfold with a knowing wink and a mischievous smile. But their “kinky fuckery” isn’t inviting. Mistaking melodrama with maturity, “Fifty Shades Darker” attempts to brood harder and kink steamier with this lewder, blackened, edgier sequel. Whatever finesse, maturation or cinematic conviction Foley found inside that work is now missing.ĭarkness doesn’t bring much to the table here either.
#Fifty shades of grey sex movie
I’d argue it looks like a TV movie production in comparison to the first, but that would honestly put to shame the finely stylish TV series that’ve sprung onto the tube of late - including Netflix’s “ House of Cards,” where Foley played a heavy hand throughout the first three seasons. Where Taylor-Johnson’s original tried to balance out the plot tedium with sharply-conceived cinematography and firm attention to detail, “Fifty Shades Darker” is visually flat and completely indistinct from a filmmaking standpoint. While rarely compelling from a narrative perspective, “Fifty Shades of Grey” held a cinematic prowess that’s utterly lost in this defective continuation. As it seems, Leila holds an unknown, potentially disturbing connection to Christian’s near past. There’s also Leila ( Bella Heathcote), a mysterious, self-mutilating hooded stranger who haunts Anastasia on multiple occasions - even when she’s asleep in her room with Grey, post-coital. Grey continues to assure his reunited lover that there’s no need for concern, but Elena’s thinly-veiled threats and venomously scornful warnings towards Grey’s newest “fling” suggest otherwise. Robinson-esque former lover that’s responsible for Grey’s unusual carnal appetite and seclusive seductive lifestyle habits, that concerns Anastasia the most. Most notably, it’s his continued working relationship with Elena Lincoln ( Kim Basinger), the older, sophisticated Mrs. But Christian still remains a little morally….grey. Though dubious, she’s willing to let Christian’s atypical (and seemingly sincere) vulnerability rekindle their once-shattered relationship. He’s willing to explore a “vanilla relationship” against his own troubled inhibitions. Creepily and commandingly like before, Christian works his way into Anastasia’s humble life again, promising the bleeding heart and general openness that was lost during their suppressive sexual exhibitions. Life is comfortably safe, but that doesn’t last long. Never has unconventional sex seemed so fucking boring.Īdjusting back to her non-submissive life after Christian Grey’s ( Jamie Dornan) “50 shades of fucked up” incident, Anastasia Steele ( Dakota Johnson) takes comfort in a new publishing assistant position, where she’s under the tutelage of her smoldering-yet-controlling boss, Jack Hyde ( Eric Johnson).
It makes ‘Grey’ look like “ Secretary” in comparison. Instead, director James Foley (“ Glengarry Glen Ross”) tries to find an ill-conceived, thin, mildly dirty line between the two, evaporating anything alluring, engaging or exciting about this sexual fantasy follow-up in the process. Actively dull and astoundingly flaccid, the monotonously dreary, everlastingly humdrum BDSM fan fiction franchise can never quite decide if it’d rather be smutty or classy. A cinematic soap opera series as sexy and stimulating as laundry detergent, and featuring far less friction, this painfully soporific sensual sequel somehow becomes even less enticing and rousing than Sam Taylor-Johnson’s tediously compromised original.
If 2015’s “ Fifty Shades of Grey” was brutally testing, “ Fifty Shades Darker” is torturous.