Half my brain is missing thanks to this movie.

Rating: 1/10 (7 March 2018)

When it comes to the best selling book, 50 Shades of Gray, I was never familiar with it nor did I ever read it, I only became aware of the movie after I saw a trailer of it and I had no interest in seeing it due to it's content. So late last year, I plucked up courage and sat down to watch 50 Shades of Gray and I absolutely despised it. From it's piss-poor writing and uncomfortable sex scenes to it's god-awful acting, this is easily the worst movie I have ever seen.
The story begins with a collage girl named Anastasia Steele who goes to interview billionaire Christian Gray when her roommate is unable to go. Upon arriving at his office, Anastasia fumbles her way though the interview but Gray takes a shine to her. After she leaves, he stakes her at her job and soon begins to shower her with gifts and she attends a photo-shoot with him. Later on, Gray attempts to get Ana to sigh an agreement to stop her from telling anyone about their love affair and tells her that he only has relationships that involve bondage defined by a contract. What follows in Ana being Gray's sex slave while Christian's more interesting side comes into play.
This day in age, some people no longer understand what acceptable or excellent is but instead settling on uninspired and consider that great and the benchmark for what movies and filmmaking should be and it sadly seems that even something as wretched and foul as 50 Shades of Garbage can't even be considered dull but rather just laughably bad as there are people who have praised this movie for the actors and for being so romantic, something I clearly didn't see. While I have never read the book, it seems that a lot of people who have read it hated it as in order for the reader to like it, they needed to use their intelligence. The successfulness of the book is established in its fictional viewpoints and while imagination can provide a person with certain feelings than most other things, the movie certainly doesn't live up to what it promises even for the most idiotic minds, let alone somebody with a wildly gifted mind. The only desire the movie will grant you is how quick you can rush out of the theater or how fast you can turn off your TV.
As somebody who against sexual abuse including BDSM, every time Christian and Ana are on screen making love, it made me groan in pain and was gut-wrenching to watch. The failure of the screenwriter to develop the sexual relationship between these two is nothing short of appalling and while Christian may appear to be every woman's dream man but instead molests a young woman simply because he had issues with his own mother and is committed to using abuse to get what he wants rather than actually having a relationship with Ana who seems to have no sexual fondness until she meets Christian and yet willfully goes along with anything he asks her to do even if it means her getting abused just shows me how sick and perverted this movie truly is.
If you read an actual romance book like Outlander, the lead is somber and disturbed for reasons that have significance and ability and is someone who commands admiration, not expect it just because they're a rich playboy and who has already shown themselves in ways that consist of pain, blood and jeopardy, not by pushing women to have sex with him though bullying tactics. How E.L. James was able to take a moronic Twilight fan fiction and turn that into a best selling series then into a movie franchise is beyond me. A 26 year old tycoon and a shy collage girl who feels the need to say oh my every few minutes, seriously?! Is this what writing from a woman's perspective has become?! Great job on that one, Kelly Marcel. Of course, there have been people who have watched the movie or read the book who have disregarded that throughout the movie, there is molestation, non consensual lovemaking and lots of physical, spoken and emotional abuse where Christian beats, spanks, hits and bullies Ana and he even controls every aspect of her life from the food she eats to how long she sleeps and yet shows not even a crumb of love for her. What kind of person would do something like that?! In fact, I would so far to call Christian and Ana just might be the worst on-screen couple since Edward and Bella.
As for the script, it's a complete joke, something that would have been laughed off the Lifetime Channel. The dialog is easily the worst I've ever heard spoken in a feature film. In fact, the movie seems to be adrift in whatever time period it is as there are times throughout the movie where certain words are used in a certain way that is intended to come across as edgy and outrageous but it instead comes across as pathetic while the character growth is non-existent which is made even more laughable because the two leads have zero on-screen chemistry which left me not caring about either one of them nor are they interesting in any capacity. Yeah, Gray's taste in women may be seen as appealing to some but it comes across as repulsive. For the viewer to become attached to a lead in a movie, it has to be because he or she is charismatic or has a backstory that is interesting or makes us feel for them, things Bela Lugosi in Dracula has because people find him compelling and not because of him being a vampire but because he's a man with a past along with actual individuality and charm while Christian Gray is a bland and blank slate devoid of any personality or charisma.
The performances are just as bad, but not even Leonardo DiCaprio and Cate Blanchett could have worked with such horrible dialog, and while Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dorian are god-awful in their roles, a lot of that can be attested to director Sam Taylor-Johnson's lifeless directing and the fact that the two leads didn't like working with each other. Dakota is far from convincing as Anastasia and comes across as a vapid and weak woman who needs a man to be with her at all times and Johnson fails at playing the part while Dorian comes across as an overbearing, creepy and unlikable moron who can't seem to be able to smile throughout the entirety of the film but instead uses the same idiotic, overly-somber facial movements for the duration of the movie. All the supporting characters are equally pointless and uninteresting.
The one great thing about this mess of celluloid is the photography and aerial shots; they look spectacular particularly the in-fight shots of Seattle or when Ana and Christian are flying, but apart from that, 50 Shades of Gray is not worth watching, I beg you, please do not go see this movie. Your brain and soul will thank you for it. In fact, watching paint dry would be more entertaining then watching this movie.