There are actually over 500 shades of grey...

Rating: 3/10 (3 March 2015)

... and the fact that this franchise only sees 50 is an indication of its complete lack of depth.
The characters are underdeveloped, one dimensional and are motivated purely by their desire to sh*g each other, which is the entire sum of what I loosely term a plot. Their interactions are mostly awkward - they have no gradual deepening of their relationship, stick to superficial topics if they do ever talk, and their 'banter' is so forced it's cringeworthy. As for the actors, Dornan looks like he'd rather be anywhere else and Johnson's ingenue is portrayed mostly through a sotto voce, whispery tone which conversely makes her sound like she's perpetually taking calls on a sex line. Johnson, however, seems more comfortable as Ana than Dornan is as Christian, maybe because Johnson is happy to do anything (including show her lady garden to the world) for her big break while Dornan has made no bones about finding the whole thing distasteful. Grey should really be named Beige he's so uninteresting as a character aside from his (poorly-researched) grasp of kink, so I don't blame him.
To be fair, I expected to hate it. The books, which I suspect were written in crayon, are an insult to anyone who appreciates real literature or real BDSM or real romance. But I have honestly seen worse films: The Lone Ranger springs to mind. I got more laughs out of 50 Shades. The toast thing, and the excruciatingly forced "Laters baby" - hilarious!! So no, I didn't hate it, I actually had quite a good laugh at its expense. The thing is, it just isn't very good. There is no chemistry, tension (sexual or otherwise), (intentional) humour or emotion in this film to engage the viewer - and certainly no clever dialogue. It's all pretty puerile and banal from start to finish, neither romantic nor sexy. Kind of like the books.
The soundtrack was decent though, as other reviewers have said, but the fact that there is music in literally EVERY scene to distract from the poor script, poor acting, nonexistent storyline and nonexistent chemistry really says it all.