Poor

Rating: 2/10 (16 February 2015)

Let me start by saying that I've never read the books, my girlfriend has and I haven't seen her so excited to see a movie for a long time, so I went along with her to see it with an open mind.
Put simply, it's a poor film. Poorly written with some really poor acting. The two lead characters are wooden with no real chemistry, I'd guess they were working within the confines of a pretty poor script so I'll let them and the director off a little, but this was still reminiscent of a low- budget B movie.
It's beyond my understanding what people can see in this movie, maybe the book was better, maybe not, I'll never know... Unless all the women I know secretly want to be tied up and flogged I don't get the attraction or the point of the film.
My guess is that even the people who are genuinely into BDSM are going to think this film is a terrible reflection of their way of life, the feminists will be jumping all over it (Although, in my opinion, there's nothing in it that's degrading to women. To each his/her own, if 2 consenting adults want to experiment, what right does anyone have to judge them?), the poor blokes who got dragged along to see it are going to slate it (me...) but the hundreds of thousands of fan-girls/women will still flock to see it in droves and ensure that the film makes a ton of money, the sequels get made and Valentines day gets ruined for another couple of years.
Having said all that, my girlfriend enjoyed it, so each to their own I guess.
For me the only reason it gets 2 stars is for the soundtrack, which was excellent.