What? Duh, of course I was going to see it. Although I did need reinforcements in the form of A, who has become my official sucky movie partner (is that a pun? No? Ok.)

Here’s my roundup of James Foley’s (Fear (1996)). Yeah, you read that right; it’s the same director as that Withespoon-Wahlberg thriller from the 90’s.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The movie pretty much picks up from where the first one left off: Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson – How to Be Single (2016)) is trying to build a normal life after her intense encounter with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan – The Fall). She has a new job and her boss, Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson – The Knick), is supportive of her talents. The problem is, Christian Grey is intent on winning her back. And Christian Grey always gets what he wants.

THE GOOD:

1. The soundtrack. Man, Danny Elfman really elevates this movie to a whole new level. Sure, it would have been nice to hear Ellie Goulding in this movie but the current track listing already fantastic as it is. I can actually see myself listening to this for the coming whole week at work.
2. The answered questions!!! Did the filmmakers read my review of the first one? They actually answered my question of who cleaned the toys in the red room! And he finally got her an iPhone!
3. Johnson and Dornan’s solid chemistry. They played off of each other really nicely with her funny awkward and his broody intense vibes. I’m still on the fence about who I like better; on one hand, Johnson did play Ana really straight by having her ask questions that normal people would ask but Dornan just kept on ploughing through with the insane lines with a straight face. I’m torn.

   

4. It’s funnier. I appreciate the new director’s decision to insert a lot of funny moments in the movie because, unlike the first, they kind of acknowledged the ludicrousness of the source material.
5. Kim Basinger looks super pretty. My friend A says that she looks so stretched that it kinda looks painful but to me she looks so much like how she looked before that I have this urge to give her cosmetics surgeon a big pat on the back for a job well done.

THE BAD:

1. Pretty much nothing still happens. I was expecting a little bit of something considering that they showed Christian Grey’s ex stalking Ana in the trailers but nope, still nothing. Just a lot of scenes detailing how a dysfunctional relationship develops.

   

2. It’s a bit too long. At an hour and fifty-eight minutes, this was easily too long especially because there was no real story to tell.
3. The kink is still pretty tame. Okay, they kind of addressed this with the whole ‘you gotta learn to walk first before you run’ thing BUT everything was still so vanilla.

   

4. The screwed up timeline. I honestly had a hard time trying to figure out how much time had elapsed in between scenes. There were three sequences that I thought happened in the span of a week but the lipstick marks were still on his chest when they got to the yacht. How was that only a day? If that’s the case then that means that the entirety of the film just spanned a little bit over a week?!?

THE UGLY:

1. That’s not how the world works, Ana! If a boss suddenly quits or gets fired, THE ASSISTANT DOES NOT GET PROMOTED TO TAKE OVER.   HOW IS THIS A THING? WHY ARE THEY PERPETUATING THIS INSANE IDEA???
2. They’re still romanticizing a fucked-up relationship though. Sure, Christian promises that he’ll change and control his urges but can he really do that? He might not be dominating over Ana in the bedroom but he’s been slowly boxing her in – he bought the company she worked for, he’s worn her down enough to get her to move in and he’s asked her to marry him. He’s clearly obsessed with her and there’s this nagging feeling in my head that eventually he will hurt her. And she’s so hell-bent on trying to change him that she’s willing to put his emotional issues over her physical ones. There’s this scene in the movie where somebody vandalized her car but the topic they eventually ended talking about were his I just can’t see this ending well, with Ana making one stupid decision after another and him clearly trying to put her in a box.

   

3. The pretend ending in my head seems like a better ending. There was a scene in the beginning of the movie where Christian begs Ana to have dinner with him. In my head she should have stood firmly on her ground and told him ‘no’. The movie could have ended right then and there with a shot of Ana walking away from Christian, a man who’s hurt her, and breathing sigh of relief.  I’d actually be okay with that.

All in all Foley’s Fifty Shades Darker wasn’t that bad. Compared to the first one, this film’s definitely better in my book because they didn’t take themselves to frakkin’ seriously in this one. They also didn’t flaunt Christian Grey’s wealth, unlike the first one, so the fact that he was filthy rich was actually more believable. Performances were good all around and the supporting cast had more to do in this one so Rita Ora, Marcia Gay Harden and Kim Basinger did have memorable quips and lines. I just can’t get on board the supposed romance because it feels like the two characters are hurtling towards something really tragic.

THE VERDICT: 5/10.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.