Fifty Shades Darker

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. (02/22/2017)

Probably the only sequel of a successful movie that perfectly transformed the proven rule of "more of everything" into "less of everything". The characters are templates, the dialogues are random clusters of words, the eroticism has one new idea for every ten routine numbers. If Jamie Dornan weren't obviously suffering from his presence in the skin of Mr. Grey, even I wouldn't forgive putting up with the laziest script far and wide. (05/27/2017)

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... (04/21/2017)

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. (04/12/2017)

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 ;) (05/22/2021)