Directed by:
James FoleyScreenplay:
Niall LeonardCinematography:
John SchwartzmanComposer:
Danny ElfmanCast:
Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Eloise Mumford, Bella Heathcote, Rita Ora, Luke Grimes, Victor Rasuk, Max Martini, Bruce Altman, Kim Basinger (more)VOD (5)
Plots(1)
When a wounded Christian Grey tries to entice a cautious Ana Steele back into his life, she demands a new arrangement before she will give him another chance. As the two begin to build trust and find stability, shadowy figures from Christian's past start to circle the couple, determined to destroy their hopes for a future together. (Universal Pictures UK)
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Reviews (9)
The title should be 117 minutes of boredom. The only thing worth looking at is Dornan's body, and even that doesn't save the film. I would like to see Dakota Johnson in a deeper role, I enjoy her acting, it's so casual and natural. I don’t mind watching something undemanding every now and again, but this was about nothing. The first episode was a star more entertaining...
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One of the few films where nothing actually happens in its two hours of running time and it's a slightly overwrought advertisement for Jamie Dornan's muscles, his penthouse and his swaggering businessman role. All this is much more entertaining than a kind of pseudo plot or bickering in bed, without any eroticism as everything is basically just for effect and fake. One of the emptiest and most pointless sequels in the history of A-list Hollywood production.
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This is entertainment - a film that has resigned itself to everything. The reading of it presents only a fairy tale story of a love relationship. Why have any plots, supporting characters, or anything else? There’s no need. She went back to him and that has to be enough :D I was kind of hoping something more interesting would come out of Kim Basinger's presence, given that she is the queen of 9½ Weeks after all. But...nah ;)
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The problem with Fifty Shades Darker is not that it doesn’t know when to end, but that it never properly starts. An essential tenet of screenwriting is that without conflict, there is no drama. Niall Leonard is apparently unaware of this. The popular statement that “nothing happens in it” applies to such an extent to few other films. Any attempt at suspense or plot twists thus comes across as unintentional comedy because of its lack of substance. Both of the protagonists do basically the same things that they did in the first instalment, though one would think that this time it is a voluntary decision on Ana’s part (she didn't know before that sex doesn’t have to be painful), which is only half true (when, for example, she tells her partner what to do to her). Grey continues to act like a faithless, possessive emotional manipulator who again lays out the rules of the game and doesn’t give much choice to his ingenuous partner, who likes to be bought a big bouquet of roses, a set of Apple products and luxury lingerie. As a result, moments that should seem romantic are actually rather creepy, because we don’t see any sincere feelings behind them. It’s also quite difficult to sympathise with the female protagonist, who has Ben Wa balls inserted into her vagina and only then asks what they are for. The adjective “vanilla” applies less to the central couple’s relationship than to the film as a whole, in which the unfortunate lack of knowing winks at the viewer prevents it from being an expression of self-reflection or an act of subversion (which, I'm afraid, should not have been a scene like something out of Magic Mike). Though the narrative of the first instalment was marked by a similar ponderousness, I found it generally thought-provoking on a deeper level of meaning. The second film is just a sequence of pretty but completely hollow shots that barely hold together (on the other hand, it’s possible that I’m just too annoyed by the film to give it any further thought). It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a similarly arrogant wager on the certainty that the target audience, longing to see a bit of harmless “kinky fuckery”, will come to the cinema anyway. 30%
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First book average, movie great, second book awesome, movie average. Or is it a matter of expectation? When I wasn't expecting anything, I was surprised. When I allowed myself to expect a lot, I was disappointed. I guess it's also because I finished the book the day I went to the cinema, so I was a little overly annoyed at how the film deviated from the book. Especially in the case of Grey. Where's the possessive guy who's terrifying and makes Ana finish every meal? I suspect the director didn't read the book, because otherwise he couldn't have denied Christian his most distinctive qualities, which a viewer who hasn't read the book won't really know about. And he also misses out on a great deal of witty dialogue and interesting characters that are just begging to be on screen. I feel like I've seen an edited version. The first one was just done with a lot more feeling and highlighted exactly the scenes that needed to be. Unfortunately that didn't happen in this case, it's all chop chop to get it done. Except perhaps for the sex scenes and the one on the boat, everything is terribly sped up, without the necessary feeling. I mean, that's what this story is supposed to be about, isn’t it? The fact that I didn't like the choice of actors for most of the characters is probably very subjective, so I can live with that, but why on earth change their characters? Elena seems mysterious in the book, but here she's just a toxic old bat full of botox. That's it. Dornan and Dakota are good, but it just bugs me that even though they both have the chops to play the characters exactly as they are, no one asked them to. Still, they have my admiration, especially for the titillating scenes.
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