Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

In order to have a good movie (not even necessarily a great one), you need a few things. 1. COMPELLING CHARACTERS: We have two. Anastasia Steele is a college student with almost no personality traits to speak of other than the fact that she is both a virgin and clearly much older than your average college student. She's also remarkably dumb, which we'll get to in a moment. Christian Grey is a young billionaire with almost no personality traits to speak of other than the fact that he enjoys BDSM, is barely able to disguise his Irish accent, and apparently doesn't like blinking very much. Neither of these characters exist as anything other than featureless blanks upon which for the audience to project themselves. Hence, Anastasia's only hobbies and interests are "books" (which is one degree shy of saying your interests are "entertainment"), and Christian never needs to work or even allude to any specific business in order to stay stupidly rich. 2. CHEMISTRY: Both actors seem stunned by their roles and the long, torturous lunacy of the script. They fall madly in love with each other, but the reasons why are never clear. I assume that Anastasia falls for Christian because he's wealthy and handsome, whereas Christian falls for Anastasia because she's the protagonist. Because she vacillates constantly between childish whining and adult indignation, it's impossible to gauge what it is about her that he likes so much. She's pretty, sure, but no more so than any of the other women that are constantly hanging around Christian's workplace. Given this massive gap in the script, the actors have no clue how to portray the relationship, so every exchange is done with wide, blank eyes and excruciating pauses between ... every ... single ... sentence. Whoever wrote this script could've taught Harold Pinter a thing or two. 3. STORY: The story is ten minutes long, and it is repeated on a loop ad nauseum. Here's a breakdown: -- Christian comes on to Anastasia. -- Anastasia acts virginal and flustered and wooed. -- Christian says he doesn't do typical boyfriend stuff (e.g. love, romance, dates, sleeping in the same bed, etc.) -- This concerns Anastasia. -- Christian sexes her up real good to shut her up. -- Afterwards, Anastasia is baffled and bothered by Christian's total adherence to what he just said. In other words, she is amazed that he doesn't want to snuggle, be in love, sleep in the same bed, etc. How dare he? Anastasia threatens to leave. -- Repeat. In other words, lethally, our basic conflict is that both characters want different things out of the relationship, and while Christian is excruciatingly clear about his limits and desires, Anastasia keeps expecting him to change. I don't know why she expects this, unless she thinks sex with her or the way she is constantly weeping and whining might somehow confound this multi-billionaire out of his cold-hearted ways. 4. DIALOGUE: I would say that about 70% of the film is our leads discussing their relationship and its various rules and boundaries. Although these change slightly throughout the film, they don't change enough to justify the mind-numbing amount of time they spend on it. Ironically, the only interesting part of the movie is when they sit down with an actual contract and discuss terms. Amusing and snappy, this small moment in the film parallels the bloated rest of the script, which is the same basic contract negotiation, except padded way out with repetitions, more pauses, and earnest ambiguities like "What are you so afraid of?" and "You're not playing fair." 5. SEX?: As a Cinemax level bit of titillation, it's workable, I guess. However, even the sex scenes get as repetitive as our basic conflict. The only differences come when a bit of spanking or bondage gets worked into things. Even then, it's pretty vanilla stuff (blindfolds and wrists bound with neckties), and it comes as an odd corollary to everything else. Christian acts like his whole personality (and his "mysterious" background) is tied up into the sultry world of BDSM, but aside from being kind of a jerk, it's hard to tell (or care) how those things tie together (pun intended). SPOILER ALERT: Even the climax of the film (ahem) involves nothing more than a few licks from a belt. Although Christian has been explicitly clear about his desires, and even though Anastasia knew what he was going to do, when he spanks her with the belt, for some reason this is crossing the line, and our movie abruptly ends with her running away, tears in her eyes, telling him to get away from her as if he has just confessed to some next level horror rather than a love of spanking booty with belts. And this, ultimately, is why this movie is horrible. Even all of the awful ingredients would get it a pass if the story had the guts to embrace itself, but it completely deflates itself at the end by acting like it is astonished by its own sultriness. The movie is little more than an excuse to arouse its predominantly female audience, but then it concludes by acting like anyone who would be turned on by such stuff is inhuman or just inhumane. I can't tell if this is mocking every woman who gets turned on by being treated horribly, or if the script is simply as moronic as the lead, but I do know it makes for a viewing experience that is both schizophrenic and boring, if not mildly insulting.