Ratings are a joke for this movie!

Rating: 8/10 (18 February 2015)

There is NO way that this movie deserves the ratings that so many have given to it. If you don't approve of the subject matter, fine, but then you shouldn't be seeing the movie in the first place. If you're trying to deliver a message, no matter how misguided, then you shouldn't do it by giving the movie a "1"--that doesn't help anyone! Could the movie have been better, sure it could. Could it have developed the characters even more, of course it could, but then it would have been a 3-4 hour movie. My wife and I felt that this movie fairly reflected the key elements of book #1. OK, it didn't cover everything, but no movie can or should, and it's an unfair standard to grade the movie against.
We thought Dakota Johnson as Ana was outstanding in carrying her part with subtlety and finesse. We found that we got angry at the character in the book for being so flighty/flaky at times, while this Ana caused me to understand the level of confusion and frustration that she was experiencing. Jamie Dornan could have been stronger, but he grew on us as the movie progressed, and he did an overall satisfactory job.
The production values on this film were top notch. I never felt that we were seeing a tawdry representation of the book, and I know that the characters will continue to show even more depth as the story unfolds in the subsequent editions.
In summary, I find I really get frustrated with the type of voting and critical review behavior evidenced for this movie. If someone doesn't like a movie for a reason, don't automatically rate it a "1" in order to overstate your point to make a statement. I've seen some pretty bad movies, but rarely do I ever dip below a "4" on the scale. If it's worse than that, I've already turned it off or left the theater.