Audiences free at last from terrible “Fifty Shades” series

By Erik Jimenez

Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty we are freed from “Fifty Shades of Grey” at last.

For years, audiences with decent taste have been subjected to both in novel and film form to a trilogy of “romance” novels so bad, they could have been “Twilight” fanfiction.

Actually, it was. E.L. James wrote a trilogy of fanfictions stories involving Alternative Universe portrayals of the character’s in Stephanie Meyer’s saga. She later decided she could get these stories published as books with a few changes to different names and locations.

The result was so infamously bad that it became cultural knowledge that it was bad. For every stay-at-home-mid-thirty-housewife who bought the trilogy unironically, there were about 10 other people of varying ages and genders that did so mockingly.

But when the movies came out, what started out as laughing at some of the worst sex books ever written became gawking at one of the most toxic relationships ever put to film.

Anastasia Steele (played by Dakota Johnson) and Christian Grey’s (played by Jamie Dornan) relationship is disturbing, with the latter’s constant domination tactics outside the bedroom: following her around, telling her what to wear, where to eat, taking her away from places whenever he feels someone is hitting on her.

This film is an insult to bondage, dominance, sadism and masochism (BDSM) folks in regards to their kinks and downright offensive to anyone in an abusive relationship. Steele’s decision to marry Grey in the last film was one of the most depressing things I have ever seen on a theater screen.

Which is where this final installment begins, though a majority of the film revolves around the honeymoon (1 hour of a 1:45 minute film). Through their marriage affairs, Ana discovers she is being stalked by her former boss, Jack Hyde (played by Eric Johnson), and is also pregnant–all in the last half hour of the film. At least that’s how long these sequences felt to me. Besides that, there is not much else. “Fifty Shades Freed” has easily the least amount of plot for any of these films.

The sex scenes continue to be one of the blandest and boner-killing shots to be put in a film, which is common for this series. The scenes are stilted, not shot well and had weak music choices. The relationship between these two is, as abusive as it is, kills any chance of their sex even getting a two star rating on Pornhub.

In porn, sex is used as a plot device or means to an end of whatever story is being told. If that is the case, it would be hard for me to argue that the “Fifty Shades” trilogy are the worst porn films to ever be made.

The acting is terrible as par for the course with this trilogy. The only thing I can give any of them credit for (specifically the returning members) is that they genuinely deserved their paychecks after coming back to this dumpster fire. Especially since this is the final film. Now they don’t have to live through any of this again and they can move on to better projects ahead.

Everything else in this film, from editing to cinematography, is unimpressive. Although, I will give it credit for its runtime being significantly shorter than the last two installments. Besides that, I genuinely can’t tell you whether this was better or worse than the last two. They are all on the same level of bad.

I remember growing up that “Twilight” was known among my generational peers and I as possibly being the worst thing ever committed to word or screen.

Looking back on it I feel that I owe Stephanie Meyer an apology. While the Fifty Shades trilogy is still bad and elements of it are still problematic, I’d rather watch any film in “The Twilight Saga” before I watch another minute of “Fifty Shades of Grey”.

I’d rather be on either Teams Edward or Jacob than Team Christian. They were both better men in comparison.

 

Photo retrieved by Flickr.