Garbage chic extraordinaire

Rating: 1/10 (8 March 2015)

50 Shades of Grey is without a doubt the worst box-office hit that Hollywood has ever produced.
It's an (unintentionally) hilarious tale of two dimwitted individuals who have an absurd sex affair. Certain Anastasia Steele, a virginal student, is so horny that she apparently can't figure out that a douchey billionaire Christian Grey who wants to spank her ass, might actually hurt her. So to figure this out, she ASKS him to whip her ass really hard. And when he does, she gets upset and leaves, thus concluding the "romance". It's pure comedy gold.
None of the characters have any idea why they do or say things, and neither do the actors. The whole story is filled with contradictions and even paradox. The script in this movie is truly something special. To see two grown-up people trying to utter those asinine lines and making total fools out of themselves is why this may be worth watching. They were sitting there behind a conference table and discussing anal fisting and butt plugs like two politicians who are negotiating a peace treaty.
Neither actor has much to go on with in terms of characterization. Their characters can only be objectively described using oxymorons. Dakota Johnson who plays Anastasia sticks with shy schoolgirl routine. Jamie Dornan who plays Christian sticks with being confused or annoyed. Sam Taylor-Johnson who plays the director apparently has no clue about what to do with this mess either. She was basically handed an explicit porno book ... uh, I mean "erotic romance" and asked to make it into an R-rated movie. So she cleaned it up, made it pretty and shiny. The music tracks play almost non-stop in this movie. Rumor has it that E.L. James (the wicked witch who spawned this 50 shades franchise) was haunting the production set and screaming in a bullhorn, "Don't touch my story. Undress Jamie Dornan now!!!" Maybe this is why the pacing is out of whack and editing is strange at some places.
The "erotic" scenes are by far the most boring part of the film. When Grey made a speech and said, "I don't make love, I flog hard", for some reason I expected to see Jason Statham vs. Amy Smart type of action (Crank). Instead we get a few sleep-inducing commercials for hygiene products loosely inspired by 9 and 1/2 weeks. Anastasia gets blindfolded all the time which paralyzes her and makes her gasp for air. Not sure why. The so-called S&M sequence was a welcome comic relief though. Someone decided it would be funny to accompany this burlesque show montage by "Crazy in Love" song played at 1/2 speed. They were right because it made Beyonce sound a bit.. stoned.
So there you have it. Cheesy, sanitized, visual re-enactment of atrociously written porn fanfic, which in terms of filmmaking fails to measure up even to the crappiest sexploitation flicks from the 70s, somehow grosses half a billion. Isn't that true magic of cinema, or what? Well done, Universal. This thing was promoted and advertised in every corner of this planet, from Cambodia to Zimbabwe. And the person who thought it should be marketed as a romantic Valentine's Day movie certainly deserves some sort of award. Maybe a golden cactus butt plug or something, because that was pure genius.
I normally don't rate movies with ones or tens, for even the worst movies (I've seen) have some sort of creative spark behind them. or at the very least serve as means for some silly people to express themselves. But in this case, I fail to see anything other than desire to exploit gullible masses and make profit out of nothing. A product of abysmal quality that was simply slapped together and put in pretty packaging to be marketed and sold -- not dissimilar to the malfunctioning 50 Shades lube (no joke).