Poor Direction, Terrible Screen writing and Bad Acting (except for Eloise Mumford)

Rating: 3/10 (16 February 2015)

1) The pacing of the movie was far too quick. It was as if director Sam-Talyor Johnson and the screenwriters went into making the movie with the mentality of "Well everyone read the book already, so everyone knows what the movie is about, so it isn't like we have to put any real focus on building such silly things like characterization, plot building, etc..etc.... The movie felt like a visual cliff notes version of the book, which worked to it's detriment.
Also, I feel that, this movie alienates those who didn't read the book. There was actually a man that I overheard coming out of the theater questioning what was going on in the movie because he hadn't even heard of the books.
BAD MOVE Directors and Screenwirters. Very bad movie!!
2) The only genuine actress in the entire movie is Eloise Mumford (who played Kate). She is the ONLY actor in the entire film that I felt was actually giving an truly believable performance, or even a PERFORMANCE for that matter. Everyone else (especially the two leads) felt like they were either phoning it in, and / or reciting lines directly from the book in a really bad staged reading rehearsal. This pure lack of character portrayal made the entire movie seem unrealistic and therefore, none of the relationships felt authentic.
To Eloise Mumford, you are singlehandedly the reason why I give this film 2 of it 3 stars, and I hope to hire you in a future production of mine.
3) The music was great, but POORLY used.
4) The movie was far too comedic, which I didn't expect at all. Why was the movie so funny? For one thing, I didn't believe anything that Mr. Grey and Anastasia Steele were saying because the performances were so bad it made even the most serious dialog seem light hearted and comical. Lastly, the movie goes by so quickly that I wasn't fully immersed in the world of the story anyway (except of course when Eloise hit the stage).
Overall, watch if your curious, but don't expect a cinematic masterpiece here.