Theatrical Review: 50 Shades Freed

Date: Saturday February 17 2018

Time: 12:20pm

Place: Cinemark Theater in Stroud Mall

Party: 3 (my mom, one of her friends from the community, and I)

 

Director: James Foley (I looked it up and he is the same James Foley who almost directed Purple Rain- he turned it down and suggested Al Magnoli who went on to do an amazing job with it)

Writers: EL James (novel), Niall Leonard (screenplay) (fun fact: they're married! mind=blown)

Composer: Danny Elfman

 

Cast:

Anastasia Steele- Dakota Johnson

Christian Grey- Jamie Dornan

Jack Hyde- Eric Johnson

Elliot Grey- Luke Grimes

Mia Grey- Rita Ora

Taylor- Mark Martini

Jose- Victor Rasuk

Kate Kavanaugh- Eloise Mumford

Dr. Grace Gray- Marcia Gay Harden

Gia Matteo- Arielle Kebbel

Sawyer- Brant Daugherty (of "Pretty Little Liars" fame)

Prescott- Kirsten Alter

Boyce Fox- Tyler Hoechlin

 

Duration: 105 minutes (+3 trailers)

Write-up:

http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2015/03/theatrical-review-50-shades-of-grey.html

http://moviegoerconfessions.blogspot.com/2017/02/theatrical-review-50-shades-darker.html

my review of the previous movies for those who are interested... then maybe you'll get an idea of what kind of review is about to follow

 

Opening comments 

 

A couple of firsts came with this movie.

First, my mom and I had someone else in our party this time. Funny that the other day, she asked if we should include my aunt (who saw all those sci-fi/superhero movies with us) and I said no... and then she comes back from happy hour and says one of her friends wanted to come. I thought for sure it was going to be super awkward, but we were driving in the car on our way there (hit a little traffic, but luckily missed nothing) and she made that same comment and we agreed.

I think what kinda helped was that she sat next to my mom and I was on my mom's other side and I was kinda reacting to the movie on my own without much conversation between us. The funny thing is that instead of us seeing it in our local theater (which burned down a few days after we saw "Despicable ME 3"), it was in a big movie house and yet, the experience was simultaneously being part of a large group and intimate. If that makes any sense...

 

I will say that I didn't care much for the TV promos for this movie... pretty much every one montaged all the scenes where Anastasia was answering to "Mrs. Grey" or saying to call her that... yet in the books, she wasn't so quick to adopt her new married name and it was a point of contention between them. And don't get me started on the use of that Demi Levato song, argh!!

 

As for the actual movie trailers...well, after traffic, and having trouble finding a parking spot (it felt like it was a Black Friday situation except I'd never been to the mall on Black Friday-- must be the President's Day weekend sales), we were stuck in line for a bit because people in front of us wanted to do more than just buy a movie ticket and go... what a pain... luckily a second cashier showed up to take care of us...

Anyway, we were in by the end of a trailer. One of the actors played Morgan in "The Mindy Project" (that was such a great show...). From there, there were 3:

 

Ocean's 8- Sandra Bullock is out on parole like George Clooney was and she's getting a group together to rob from a fashion show. Mindy is in the cast along with a lot of other bad ass chicks of various backgrounds. It looks like a lot of fun.

 

Book Club- it's about women in their 60's and 70's wanting to rekindle the sex in their lives after they read 50 Shades of Grey... this was the PERFECT trailer for this movie, I swear :P not sure if we'd see it in a theater because my folks are mad about something Jane Fonda was politically involved in years ago... but it'd be fun to see on HBO when it comes there.

 

Mamma Mia! 2- I'd heard about this, but had no idea how they could do another movie or what it's even about. I was afraid that Sophie had cheated on Skye with 2 other guys and she was in the same situation as her mom. It is actually following the model of the "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" sequel where they went into how Tula's parents met. The young girl in the trailers is actually Donna and how she met Sam, Bill and Harry and Donna and the Dynamos became a thing. A bunch of us are still mad about Meryl Streep's political comments, but we still like her in movies like this. It also appears that they recast Harry Bright cuz that does not look like Colin Firth. Too bad they couldn't recast Pierce Brosnan and get someone who can actually sing...

 

:sigh: much like I'd been doing all this stuff to put off doing some Prince-related writing (summing up why my favorite songs and albums are my favorites)... I'm putting off getting to this actual movie... it really wasn't that bad, but it's not Oscar-worthy cinema by any stretch of the imagination.

 

Book to Movie Adaptation

 

I did this for all the other movies, so I might as well do it now. I think this was a faithful adaptation. There were some R-rated details and uncomfortable dialogue that they did not put in the script... I think there was a scene during the honeymoon where Christian told Anastasia not to use the bathroom before sex because it'll make for a better orgasm. Something like that... although I've heard (not that I'd personally know- still a virgin and in no hurry to change that) you should do so after you have sex because it cuts the risks of UTIs.

 

And then... well, the trailers do spoil the fact that Anastasia gets knocked up, that's not giving much away... there is a scene towards the end of the movie where they do stuff in the red room while she's pregnant... seriously, WTF? Then he makes some other comment that just made me wanting to shout obscenities at him. But then again, I spent much of this book doing that. It's a strange thing, though, because my plan in life does not involve having children, yet whenever a man gets possessive of a woman and pregnancy is involved, I flip out on them. It's about her and the baby, it's not about you and your so-called "needs."

 

I don't know if it's that feminine instinct or I was really wronged by a man in a previous life... I've got a lot of weird opinions about a lot of random things. And there are some Prince songs I don't like to listen to because the lyrical content conflicts with those opinions... less than 10 out of 100's of songs...

 

Moving on... already WAY off topic.

 

 

The Main Event

 

Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey get married in a nice ceremony and there's a montage with the opening credits showing all their honeymoon exploits. (Which are more about collecting Pandora charms than sex scenes-- but they did manage to squeeze one in there... because why not?).

However, getting married has not deterred Christian from being possessive and controlling. If anything, it's gotten worse. I will give him the fact that Anastasia potentially winding up in a tabloid because her being bare-breasted on a nude beach... but everything else after that... there's a reason RED is the safe word here. A lot of red flags. As much as he is willing to compromise and he's compromised a lot over the last movie, there are still issues I have with him that will likely never go away.

 

Much of the movie is about the two of them adjusting to the married life, dealing with the underlying threat of Jack Hyde (Anastasia's former boss who attacked her in the previous movie) and an unexpected pregnancy.

 

For the sex itself... they did up the ante a bit compared to the previous movie.

It's like this... the first movie was about the two of them getting to know each other. Likewise, their sexual identity as a couple was still trying to find itself. The second movie brought more communication into the fray and this movie has more focus on the S&M bondge and such. Like it's a regular thing for them now and she's ok with it. And compared to the previous two movies, there were more sex scenes. At least one or two more that I can remember.

 

Not counting the honeymoon montage and one of those scenes where there's a look exchanged and the next scene she's asleep in bed...

 

1- handcuffs on her wrists and ankles... a bit of dialogue that was missing, though... in the book, after they finish, he's very apologetic to her because the handcuffs left marks on her skin and he'd been too rough on her... this is one of those points where the book harkened back to Twilight where Edward was really apologetic to Bella after they have sex because he left bruises all over her body. It bothered me how some people said that their relationship was abusive and that scene was an example of that. It was not intentional at all. Whereas I'm pretty sure the handcuffs were Christian's idea and he regretted it afterwards.

 

2- there's a car chase scene... a really cool one... and for whatever reason, Anastasia got such a high off that adrenaline rush that when they pull over into a parking lot, she climbs on top of him and they do it right there... I don't remember that scene in the book at all (the chase scene or the sex)... I don't know what everyone else was thinking, but I was kinda like "yeah, ok..." not really sure what to think. Also, the way it was shot and acted out, it was a little clunky and awkward. Almost like a scene from Showgirls where the actors were positioned in a such a way where there is no conceivable way that penetration could have occurred. Actually, there wasn't just one scene in Showgirls like that. (I hadn't seen the movie myself and don't plan to, but I had seen a couple of videos of people reviewing it or just pointing out all the CinemaSins committed)

 

3- the "frustration" scene where Anastasia actually uses her safe word... on the third book and it FINALLY happens... as she puts it afterwards, "that was not love, that was revenge"... I remember reading that scene in the book and cheering that she took a stand. But I don't remember it involving a vibrator. That was another of those awkward scenes to kinda watch. I have a feeling that it'd be the kind of scene where, if I was younger, my mom would send me out of the room and to come back when it's over. (That happened years ago when she was watching The Sweetest Thing and I think it was an oral sex scene... I think I saw it years later when I was old enough and she was the one on the receiving end).

 

4- well, let's just say this scene kinda ruined Ben & Jerry for everyone :P ... the only cliché that was missing out of it... the two of them were getting busy on a tabletop in the middle of the night... I was so waiting for the following scene to be the next morning and everyone was having breakfast at the same table... they had that "boob land" dialogue in the nude beach scene yet they couldn't push the super cheesiness of this movie to that extent?
Minus Ben & Jerry, that scene kinda made me think about a Prince lyric "I'd rather wait 'til everyone's fast asleep and do it in the kitchen on the tabletop"... "Shh" is such a great song if only for the guitar solos alone...

 

5- there's a montage that occurs in Anastasia's mind when she's musing over a cup of tea of them having sex...

 

I might be missing another, but that's the basic gist of it.
For the most part, though... the positions really didn't vary a whole lot... some might find that lame and boring... but I guess as far as the awkward vs. erotic debate goes, this movie probably has the most awkward sex scenes of the franchise. It's almost like they stopped caring about not hamming it up too much. They knew the material wasn't the greatest and just wanted to get through it.

 

I know this franchise is meant to be about... as Anastasia puts it in the second movie.. "kinky fuckery"... the best parts of it weren't about it so much as the villain.

I don't know why, but I kept calling Jack Hyde "Eric" in my head... maybe cuz he reminds me of Eric from "True Blood" despite not having seen much of it... or cuz his actor's name is Eric... but yeah, the threat of them coming after them felt really real. And the adrenaline involved with that was a good high. Not to mention it means something interesting is going on.

There were a few laughs during the movie at some inappropriate times (never during the sex scenes, so that was good), but there were some good timed laughs. One of them was when Jack gets reprimanded by the bodyguards and they say how they don't have anything to hold him. Anastasia says that they have things to use... it's like... yeah, we ALL know what she's talking about. And it's a good use of that equipment for sure.

 

However, the ultimate climax of the movie... it maybe borrowed a little too much from Twilight... the female protagonist having to meet someone dangerous and keeping their movements secret from everyone else they care about... but it was a good conclusion to this. And Anastasia gets to have one more bad-ass moment I had to cheer for- even if I was the only one in the theater to do so. (The Twilight movies really did not give that to Bella at all and that's a tragedy... she's much better a character than she's given credit for, I think).

 

Beyond the sex and the action, this movie is ultimately character driven and it's about our two main characters and their relationship. They're not going to buy into it unless you feel invested in them. Some people aren't, but I am for some odd reason I really can't explain. I just hang on the edge of my seat (despite knowing what happens) to see where things go with them.

 

The biggest issue I had with Christian Grey throughout the books boiled down to his overreaction over Anastasia's pregnancy.

But the way it comes about in the books, maybe I was reading too much into things, but I was under the impression that someone at work was purposely not fielding calls from Anastasia's doctor to her about certain appointments and that's how she missed getting her birth control shots.

 

However, in the movie, she gets sick and sees a doctor and just finds out she's pregnant and just simply forgot to go for her injections. And then Christian loses his shit over that.

:sigh: see, this is my big issue... somewhere in the 2nd book, he makes a comment that he hates condoms and has her see a doctor to get a certain kind of birth control that is a monthly injections. If this relationship is ultimately his idea, why the hell is it her responsibility to be on birth control? If it was a mutual thing that both of them did, that'd be something else... but him losing it with her just infuriated me. In the book, they were having sex practically every chapter. Not so much in the movies, but really... all that sex, what do you expect is going to happen?

Not in the book, but in Breaking Dawn part 1, I also took issue with Edward's reaction to Bella wanting to keep her pregnancy. Because this human-vampire hybrid baby was practically killing her, he said that they were supposed to be partners after being married and she had decided without him to take herself away from him forever. Men (living or undead) can be real jerks sometimes when unplanned pregnancies occur and it just infuriates me.

 

But when the two of them (back to Anastasia and Christian) talked about it and she really gave him a piece of her mind about his overreaction to what happened... that was just so good on her. I was proud of her just telling him how she felt and not letting him off the hook for his behavior.

That was something that the third person in our party admired to. She said how she kinda didn't like the actress in the previous movies, but she really liked how she stood up for herself. In a world that has become so about girl power and women being able to stand up for themselves... not a lot of the movie really speaks in favor of that, but there were scenes like this that supported it. And I thought that was good.

 

Not sure of what any of the songs were, but there were some really good songs in the movie. And of course, I got a little emotional when "Love me Like you do" made a comeback at the end in a very predicable fashion... I just love that song so much and I had since put it to a figure skating montage. Not someone I have romantic feelings for, mind you, but his skating just kept coming to mind when I listened to it to the point I just couldn't avoid doing it. It's not as good as the montage I did with a Depeche Mode song (which really told a good story through the footage I used), but it went all right.

 

As for grading this movie...

I guess I'll give a B+.

There were some good points in the movie I really liked, but there were some low points where I either hated Christian Grey or just thought the sex scenes were awkward to watch. Or just really bad cheesy dialogue.

 

One thing he did that I liked... after doing something that made me very unhappy... Anastasia commented how she never got to spend time with her friends anymore. The next scene, her friends get to come with her on a weekend getaway and she gets some good time with them. And somewhere in between, Ben & Jerry becomes the third party of a three-way. I'm not the type of girl who needs to get a pint to eat my feelings about things, but it will be a while before I get myself another pint :P