“I don’t know whether to worship at your feet or spank you.”
Beginning with a flower delivery, Fifty Shades Darker is as funny and ridiculous as it is sexual. And what’s worst - even with all the sex and porn style dialogue, the film is actually quite boring.
Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan reprise their roles as Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey respectively, taking viewers on a rather ridiculous ride as they test the waters in a fairly quick (and anti-climatic) will they or won’t they montage.
But the suspense is short lived as Steele finds herself enjoying the luxury life that Grey can accommodate - even if she appears to be turned off by the money, the obsession and penthouse view.
And that, in all its glory, is all we get out of this highly sexual though increasingly dull sequel.
The sexuality, though amped up, is more times than not awkward. The dialogue is fairly unusual and stiff, and the conflict is obnoxiously foreseen and overly dramatic. Thirty minutes in you find yourself unsure whether you are watching a controversial film dealing with S&M or a telenovela on Telemundo.
Marcia Gay Harden is easily the most authentic of the group, reprising her role as Christian’s adopted mother Grace. Her delivery is genuine and pure, offering up a refreshing quality to the otherwise struggling jumble of scenes.
But not to worry, anytime the story hits a low point, we are treated to an unusually heightened and fairly forced sexual encounter from our leading duo - this after Christian purchases the company that Anastasia works for, firing her boss and immediately promoting her to fiction editor.
If this all sounds a bit out there, not to worry - there is plenty more.
Much of the film comes off as a long running joke, one where our two love birds are the never ending punch line. From Anastasia’s indecisive nature surrounding Christian’s desire for kink to a seemingly random and unneeded confrontation that involves a gun and one of Christian’s former subs, nothing appears in place as the two become lost within their own world where sex proves most intoxicating.
And when their lives are thrown into a rather flat and uninspiring haze, it takes merely three minutes for the issue to be resolved and have life return to normal. Drama? Maybe. Interesting movie sequence? Hardly.
The final scene is just as awkward as the first, especially considering the fact that neither Anastasia or Christian appear to have grown during their time together. Kim Bassinger’s Elena Lincoln offers us a few fair warnings - one of which lands a glass of champaign in her face - but no one appears to care.
The film does set itself up for the final chapter in the Steel/Grey universe quite well, including the debut trailer for Fifty Shades Freed as a post-trailer “tease”. Its a cop out, but one that loyal fans will likely find appetizing as they anxious await the final film. Others will groan and appreciate that this mess is quickly coming to an end.
