Plenty of style, little substance

Rating: 5/10 (16 February 2015)

I hadn't read the book before seeing this film, and I was fully aware of the poor reception it had received, so to be honest, I wasn't expecting much. Sometimes though, a film becomes so huge that it simply HAS to be seen.
On the whole, it was average, although not as dreadful as I'd feared. The whole film oozes style and opulence, the clothing (when worn), Mr Grey's luxurious penthouse, the obscenely expensive modes of transport, it goes on.
In some ways, the film could have been made in the 1980s, a decade when films depicting gaudy shows of wealth were commonplace.
While Dakota Johnson did a pretty good job as Anastasia,, the film fell down with Mr Grey himself. I loved Jamie Dornan's masterclass as Paul Spector in The Fall, but I can only describe his performance in 50 Shades as flat. Maybe it's the character rather than the actor, but almost zero charisma, and with little to offer beyond his material side, Grey is an appropriate surname.
I've seen loads of films and dramas that chart the progress of a doomed relationship, and if it's any good, I feel genuine sadness when the end comes. In this case though, when the lift doors closed and the credits started to roll, all I thought was "is that it?"