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What a way to kick of this set of reviews. So for those who have been living under a rock for the past few years, Fifty Shades of Grey took the literary world by storm in the same way Twilight and Harry Potter did before hand. Only this set of books had more talk of flogging and orgasms. And like the last two series, someone decided that these books needed to become movies. Because why not? This a very well known property and it has a built in audience that will drawn in lots of women (and men forced to go see it with them) to the theater. To top it off it is not like these books need the same kind of budget for a Twilight or Harry Potter film. You don’t need $150-200 million to tell this story. Heck the budget for this movie is listed as $40 million. And everyone and their grandma and their dates will probably see this on Valentine’s Day weekend, and scores more will see it for the notoriety alone. So this movie is set up to be a hit. But does that mean the movie is good? Oh Heavens no! Now to be clear, I have never read either of the books. Heck I did not even know there were two other books until yesterday. So I will be judging the movie on the merits of the film and nothing else. But I will touch a bit on the history of the novel when the time is right. But for now, we focus on the film’s adaptation into the world of le cinema! So submit to my will and read on as we examine this newest slice of smut.
The book opens up on the West Coast as it introduces us to Christian Grey who lives in Seattle Washington. Christian is introduced as a typical Harlequin Romance novel character. He is rich, athletic, has a perfect body, and has no real personality. We are also introduced to our female lead, Anastasia (Ana) Steele, a name that has no business existing outside of porn. But this is Fifty Shades of Grey, so I will let it go. For some convoluted reason, Ana gets sent off to interview Mr. Grey for the Washington State University student newspaper. Ana is not a journalism major, her friend and roommate is. But she is “sick” and can’t go. I say “sick” because she is sitting up in here PJs eating soup. Not in the hospital, under quarantine, or on her deathbed mind you. Heck she barely looks sick. I only learned she was sick when the Ana said she was 5 minutes after she left the house. That is all kinds of unprofessional if you ask me. If a media billionaire actually gives enough of a crap to allow an interview with a college newspaper, I think you can suck it up and bring some tissues. But Ana has to go otherwise we do not have a movie.
So Ana goes to meet Mr. Grey and is instantly attracted to him, and the attraction is mutual. Or so says the movie since the chemistry between Dakota Johnson and Jaime Dornan is about as electrifying as a half dead Energizer battery. After watching these two try to act off each other I craved the sizzle of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall from The Big Sleep. But dammit all to Hell this movie will try to convince me there is chemistry between these two by having Ana start to pant heavily with desire as she leaves his office. And to make things even less subtle it starts to rain too. Classy movie; I’m actually surprised that the director didn't do the “I’m all wet” joke at the end of that scene. The rest of the movie naturally deals with the relationship between these two. A relationship advertised as hot, erotic, and kinky. I mean this is Fifty Shades of Grey after all. This is supposed to be trashy. Problem is, the movie is actually kind of dull.
Okay let’s look at the relationship between Grey and Ana. I say relationship since Grey says he does not do romance. Why does he not do romance? He claims “Because that is the way I am.” Which is the director’s way of saying this will not be explained in the movie. So we have the usual trappings of a typical romance movie. We have a guy and a girl, and supposedly they like each other. We also have a few other cheesy romance story troupes. There is Jose, a male character in Ana’s life to play the role of “other guy.” And by other guy I mean a very poor attempt to try and even have a hint of a man who might be thought of as potential romantic rival to Grey. Which is stupid since Grey is the rich media mogul with no personality and the other guy is a no personality photographer. We see them interact with each other, but Grey makes it very clear he has issues with intimacy. He does not like to be touched and he does not like to share beds with his partners. This is one of many stupid behaviors this character displays. Another one being stalking! Seriously, apparently he tracks down the hardware store where Ana works. The store is in Oregon and he is in Seattle. How the hell did he get this info? Does he work for the NSA? I blame the bad writing. In addition he picks up several items in an attempt at heavy handed foreshadowing. And then this movie takes a turn for the stupid when Grey stops pursuing her saying “I am not what you are looking for.” Which was such a 180 I nearly got whiplash. I mean seriously, what the hell kind of BS is this? I mean this is really bad writing since 10 minutes later he is back using his stalker teleportation powers. Either that or he secretly had Ana low jacked. The whole first 40 minutes plays out like a REALLY poorly written fan fiction. More on that in a minute.
But what about the reason a lot of other people wanted to see this movie, what about the sleaze? Can people enjoy this for the smut factor and ignore the story? That is going to be kind of hard to do. I mean at one point in the film I am looking at my watch saying, “It is 40 minutes into this crap, and I am watching an uninteresting relationship set up with boring people in really stupid ways. WHERE THE HELL IS THE SLEAZE?!?!?” Well the movie apparently heard me as it had its first sex scene. And to the movies credit it was pretty sexy. Then again it was not kinky. We learn that Ana is a virgin (which I found VERY hard to believe) and Grey decides to “rectify this issue.” A line so bad I’m sure it had to come out of a Penthouse Forum Letter. But the scene was slow, tender, passionate and kinda hot. Point to the movie, but it was nowhere near what I was expecting. Now we also get some additional sex scenes (4 or 5 total) and they do get more involved in the world of BDSM, but all in all the film was actually really disappointing in that regard. The scenes are short and too few and far between for this to be a simple mindless sleaze fest.
Let’s compare this to a sleaze fest I really like, Hardcore. Hardcore is a 1979 movie written and directed by Paul Schrader. In that movie George C Scott is trying to find his missing daughter who turns up starring in an underground porno movie. So George must go deep into a sea of porno movies, adult theaters, strip clubs and other dens of sin and vice in order to find her and bring her home. Hardcore is a very sleazy movie. Fifty Shades is actually pretty tame. Sure they discuss BDSM, and the nature of submissive and dominants, but that is it. This fails for me in two ways. First of BDSM is SO not my bag. But the film fails those whose bag it is. This film tells more instead of showing. Film is a VISUAL medium! And I am sure those who are into the whips and chains are going to be disappointed with the few and very short scenes of BDSM and that there are actually only a handful of scenes with nudity. But the biggest problem with Fifty Shades lies in its inspiration. Hardcore was written and directed by one of the greatest writers in cinema; the man who gave us Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and American Gigolo. Fifty Shades of Grey, started off as a Twilight fan fiction. I am not even joking. Erika Mitchell (whose pen name is EL James) wrote a Twilight fan fiction under the online handle Snowqueen’s Icedragon, that she later turned into Fifty Shades of Grey. Hence why the movie shares a lot of similarities with Twilight: set in Washington, two leads in love / lust for no reason, a complete misunderstanding of how people interact, and tripe of that nature. I can only imagine how the original version was about Edward and Bella discussing butt plugs and fisting.
So the movie as a whole was a poorly written story, following characters I do not care about, advertised as sleaze but with very few and sex scenes. Meaning the film falls well short of the hype. Now I did not expect a good movie, but I expected it to be more explicit. Then again I should have known better due to the R rating. In addition to Hardcore this movie also made me think about Blue is the Warmest Color. Not because that movie was sleazy, but because that movie had a lot of buzz about it for its explicitness AND it lived up to the hype. But in addition to the actual explicit sex scenes, it was also a really great story. I got invested in the romance of Adele and Emma, I was sad when the relationship ended, they had excellent chemistry, and I wanted to see them succeed as a couple. Oh yeah they were also very naked and face deep in each other’s genitals for extended periods of time… but the actual story and characters were so good, that actually became secondary. Fifty Shades of Grey fails so much because I don’t give a damn about any of the characters. They are so poorly defined and have zero personality that the only way I would enjoy this movie is if this movie was straight up sleaze. But since this movie didn’t do that all I got was a dull flick with a few minutes of something even a little titillating.
My final verdict: If you want to watch a film that is explicit but actually has a really story behind it watch Blue is the Warmest Color. If you want to watch a good movie that is sleazy go watch Hardcore, a Brian De Palma movie, or something like Body Heat. If you want something with zero character and all action; go watch porn. But stay far away from this crap.
What a way to kick of this set of reviews. So for those who have been living under a rock for the past few years, Fifty Shades of Grey took the literary world by storm in the same way Twilight and Harry Potter did before hand. Only this set of books had more talk of flogging and orgasms. And like the last two series, someone decided that these books needed to become movies. Because why not? This a very well known property and it has a built in audience that will drawn in lots of women (and men forced to go see it with them) to the theater. To top it off it is not like these books need the same kind of budget for a Twilight or Harry Potter film. You don’t need $150-200 million to tell this story. Heck the budget for this movie is listed as $40 million. And everyone and their grandma and their dates will probably see this on Valentine’s Day weekend, and scores more will see it for the notoriety alone. So this movie is set up to be a hit. But does that mean the movie is good? Oh Heavens no! Now to be clear, I have never read either of the books. Heck I did not even know there were two other books until yesterday. So I will be judging the movie on the merits of the film and nothing else. But I will touch a bit on the history of the novel when the time is right. But for now, we focus on the film’s adaptation into the world of le cinema! So submit to my will and read on as we examine this newest slice of smut.
The book opens up on the West Coast as it introduces us to Christian Grey who lives in Seattle Washington. Christian is introduced as a typical Harlequin Romance novel character. He is rich, athletic, has a perfect body, and has no real personality. We are also introduced to our female lead, Anastasia (Ana) Steele, a name that has no business existing outside of porn. But this is Fifty Shades of Grey, so I will let it go. For some convoluted reason, Ana gets sent off to interview Mr. Grey for the Washington State University student newspaper. Ana is not a journalism major, her friend and roommate is. But she is “sick” and can’t go. I say “sick” because she is sitting up in here PJs eating soup. Not in the hospital, under quarantine, or on her deathbed mind you. Heck she barely looks sick. I only learned she was sick when the Ana said she was 5 minutes after she left the house. That is all kinds of unprofessional if you ask me. If a media billionaire actually gives enough of a crap to allow an interview with a college newspaper, I think you can suck it up and bring some tissues. But Ana has to go otherwise we do not have a movie.
So Ana goes to meet Mr. Grey and is instantly attracted to him, and the attraction is mutual. Or so says the movie since the chemistry between Dakota Johnson and Jaime Dornan is about as electrifying as a half dead Energizer battery. After watching these two try to act off each other I craved the sizzle of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall from The Big Sleep. But dammit all to Hell this movie will try to convince me there is chemistry between these two by having Ana start to pant heavily with desire as she leaves his office. And to make things even less subtle it starts to rain too. Classy movie; I’m actually surprised that the director didn't do the “I’m all wet” joke at the end of that scene. The rest of the movie naturally deals with the relationship between these two. A relationship advertised as hot, erotic, and kinky. I mean this is Fifty Shades of Grey after all. This is supposed to be trashy. Problem is, the movie is actually kind of dull.
Okay let’s look at the relationship between Grey and Ana. I say relationship since Grey says he does not do romance. Why does he not do romance? He claims “Because that is the way I am.” Which is the director’s way of saying this will not be explained in the movie. So we have the usual trappings of a typical romance movie. We have a guy and a girl, and supposedly they like each other. We also have a few other cheesy romance story troupes. There is Jose, a male character in Ana’s life to play the role of “other guy.” And by other guy I mean a very poor attempt to try and even have a hint of a man who might be thought of as potential romantic rival to Grey. Which is stupid since Grey is the rich media mogul with no personality and the other guy is a no personality photographer. We see them interact with each other, but Grey makes it very clear he has issues with intimacy. He does not like to be touched and he does not like to share beds with his partners. This is one of many stupid behaviors this character displays. Another one being stalking! Seriously, apparently he tracks down the hardware store where Ana works. The store is in Oregon and he is in Seattle. How the hell did he get this info? Does he work for the NSA? I blame the bad writing. In addition he picks up several items in an attempt at heavy handed foreshadowing. And then this movie takes a turn for the stupid when Grey stops pursuing her saying “I am not what you are looking for.” Which was such a 180 I nearly got whiplash. I mean seriously, what the hell kind of BS is this? I mean this is really bad writing since 10 minutes later he is back using his stalker teleportation powers. Either that or he secretly had Ana low jacked. The whole first 40 minutes plays out like a REALLY poorly written fan fiction. More on that in a minute.
But what about the reason a lot of other people wanted to see this movie, what about the sleaze? Can people enjoy this for the smut factor and ignore the story? That is going to be kind of hard to do. I mean at one point in the film I am looking at my watch saying, “It is 40 minutes into this crap, and I am watching an uninteresting relationship set up with boring people in really stupid ways. WHERE THE HELL IS THE SLEAZE?!?!?” Well the movie apparently heard me as it had its first sex scene. And to the movies credit it was pretty sexy. Then again it was not kinky. We learn that Ana is a virgin (which I found VERY hard to believe) and Grey decides to “rectify this issue.” A line so bad I’m sure it had to come out of a Penthouse Forum Letter. But the scene was slow, tender, passionate and kinda hot. Point to the movie, but it was nowhere near what I was expecting. Now we also get some additional sex scenes (4 or 5 total) and they do get more involved in the world of BDSM, but all in all the film was actually really disappointing in that regard. The scenes are short and too few and far between for this to be a simple mindless sleaze fest.
Let’s compare this to a sleaze fest I really like, Hardcore. Hardcore is a 1979 movie written and directed by Paul Schrader. In that movie George C Scott is trying to find his missing daughter who turns up starring in an underground porno movie. So George must go deep into a sea of porno movies, adult theaters, strip clubs and other dens of sin and vice in order to find her and bring her home. Hardcore is a very sleazy movie. Fifty Shades is actually pretty tame. Sure they discuss BDSM, and the nature of submissive and dominants, but that is it. This fails for me in two ways. First of BDSM is SO not my bag. But the film fails those whose bag it is. This film tells more instead of showing. Film is a VISUAL medium! And I am sure those who are into the whips and chains are going to be disappointed with the few and very short scenes of BDSM and that there are actually only a handful of scenes with nudity. But the biggest problem with Fifty Shades lies in its inspiration. Hardcore was written and directed by one of the greatest writers in cinema; the man who gave us Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and American Gigolo. Fifty Shades of Grey, started off as a Twilight fan fiction. I am not even joking. Erika Mitchell (whose pen name is EL James) wrote a Twilight fan fiction under the online handle Snowqueen’s Icedragon, that she later turned into Fifty Shades of Grey. Hence why the movie shares a lot of similarities with Twilight: set in Washington, two leads in love / lust for no reason, a complete misunderstanding of how people interact, and tripe of that nature. I can only imagine how the original version was about Edward and Bella discussing butt plugs and fisting.
So the movie as a whole was a poorly written story, following characters I do not care about, advertised as sleaze but with very few and sex scenes. Meaning the film falls well short of the hype. Now I did not expect a good movie, but I expected it to be more explicit. Then again I should have known better due to the R rating. In addition to Hardcore this movie also made me think about Blue is the Warmest Color. Not because that movie was sleazy, but because that movie had a lot of buzz about it for its explicitness AND it lived up to the hype. But in addition to the actual explicit sex scenes, it was also a really great story. I got invested in the romance of Adele and Emma, I was sad when the relationship ended, they had excellent chemistry, and I wanted to see them succeed as a couple. Oh yeah they were also very naked and face deep in each other’s genitals for extended periods of time… but the actual story and characters were so good, that actually became secondary. Fifty Shades of Grey fails so much because I don’t give a damn about any of the characters. They are so poorly defined and have zero personality that the only way I would enjoy this movie is if this movie was straight up sleaze. But since this movie didn’t do that all I got was a dull flick with a few minutes of something even a little titillating.
My final verdict: If you want to watch a film that is explicit but actually has a really story behind it watch Blue is the Warmest Color. If you want to watch a good movie that is sleazy go watch Hardcore, a Brian De Palma movie, or something like Body Heat. If you want something with zero character and all action; go watch porn. But stay far away from this crap.