I went to see this one, like the previous two, because I thought it would be fun and also wanted to see the story end. However, the film is such as disaster that it made me reconsider "Fifty Shades of Grey" and "Darker". While the first one was somehow interesting as it is the one establishing the story, characters and tone, and the second one was an extremely hilarious experience thanks to the public in the cinema who shot joke after joke about it, the third left me with a bitter taste of hollowness and nothingness. Even the other people in the cinema were feeling irritated and bored; about 20 minutes into the film they started walking in and out of the cinema hall. They had a moment, I guess, when they wanted to leave but remembered they had payed for the tickets. Really, it was no fun, no thrilling, no sexy and sure as hell not climactic. It was a bore with loose narrative threads and sex scenes as fillers.
The supposed challenges the protagonists must face are laughable. First, there comes a flirtatious woman behaving in inappropriate ways towards Christian. Mmm...interesting, I thought! Then Ana knocks her down in a 40-second dialogue. Ok... I wonder what's next, what this new woman is up to, what Christian will do etc. Well, nevermind, we don't get to see her again except in a short scene hugging Eliot. Problem solved. After a "Fast & Furious" break, there seems to be a newer problem: Jack Hyde. There's some threatening and guns, we don't really know his motives and they really don't matter as long as the scenes drag the film further. No one cares anyway.
It was not until very close to the film's ending that I truly felt the way it failed. When Ana wakes up in hospital, Christian tells her, with wet eyes, something like "I thought I lost you" and that's when everyone in the cinema bursted laughing. The tagline warns us not to miss the climax. Well, I did miss it. The only effect this film had on me was intellectual frustration. In the end, I need to mention that I appreciated Dakota Johnson once again for making the best of what was given to her in this film. She's the one that makes the film watchable by her rather good performance. I'm glad the critics remarked her. I hope she gets over this whole circus and manages to establish herself as the talented and serious actress that she is.
The supposed challenges the protagonists must face are laughable. First, there comes a flirtatious woman behaving in inappropriate ways towards Christian. Mmm...interesting, I thought! Then Ana knocks her down in a 40-second dialogue. Ok... I wonder what's next, what this new woman is up to, what Christian will do etc. Well, nevermind, we don't get to see her again except in a short scene hugging Eliot. Problem solved. After a "Fast & Furious" break, there seems to be a newer problem: Jack Hyde. There's some threatening and guns, we don't really know his motives and they really don't matter as long as the scenes drag the film further. No one cares anyway.
It was not until very close to the film's ending that I truly felt the way it failed. When Ana wakes up in hospital, Christian tells her, with wet eyes, something like "I thought I lost you" and that's when everyone in the cinema bursted laughing. The tagline warns us not to miss the climax. Well, I did miss it. The only effect this film had on me was intellectual frustration. In the end, I need to mention that I appreciated Dakota Johnson once again for making the best of what was given to her in this film. She's the one that makes the film watchable by her rather good performance. I'm glad the critics remarked her. I hope she gets over this whole circus and manages to establish herself as the talented and serious actress that she is.