Fifty Shades Darker...but not darker at all

Image: Splashnews

Last night I skipped off to the Fifty Shades Darker (R21) movie screening, thinking I knew exactly what was in store. After all, I've read all the books and saw Fifty Shades of Grey as soon as it was released, so I considered myself well equipped for the sequel. 

Let me just tell you now, how very wrong I was. 

I nestled into my seat complete with overpriced giant soda and sweet popcorn ready to enjoy some mild erotica and a loose storyline.

Within 30 minutes, I realised that this was in fact nothing like the original. Nothing whatsover. I enjoyed the first one but this...well...was disappointing. 

Image: Giphy.com

I already knew the plot was pretty bad (cannot say much for fear of spoiler alert!) but I was in a whole new realm of 'meh' as the story unravelled. It seems that copious scenes were plonked clunkily into place for some too-obvious requirement of the storyboard. Sure, the story must be told, I hear ya. But when it has no natural flow or consistency, it makes the viewer switch off. 

Then we have these 'wannabe action' scenes which then suddenly switch to the complete opposite mood with no real explanation of how we all got from one state of affairs to the other.  This is turn makes the characters come off as unfinished and fake.  If you're in some sort of life-threatening situation then yeah...it will affect you for a longggggg time after. You don't suddenly check yourself over, make sure you're alive and enjoy some alcohol and steamy sex session.

Image: Giphy.com

That leads me nicely onto my next issue...the sex scenes.

It feels like someone from high above in movie-land told the film makers that the sex scenes weren't dirty enough and need to be ranked up a few notches. But it has been done minus any of the real seduction, sexuality and broody romance that the first movie managed to cultivate. Here, we seem to just have continual random acts of sex between a rather dysfunctional couple.

Image: Tumblr

Plus, it felt that there were various sex scenes just for the sake of having a sex scene...as if it needed to live up to the hype of the 'erotica' label. 

And don't even get me started about the literal aspects of all of this – her hair should be completely messed up after she's been chucked around a bed, not still perfectly pinned up as if it never happened.

Maybe I was just expecting too much? I doubt it. I had no-one there to distract me and yet I still managed to lose focus and understanding on what was happening and more importantly, why it was even happening.

The 'dark' part was gone...filled only instead by a slightly twisted romance story that included more dysfunctional and unrealistic characters.

What gripped us all in the first movie was Grey himself – his need for control and sexual perversion over his submissives, which no longer exists and thus makes this movie so very vanilla itself.

In my eyes, it wasn't darker at all. In fact, I feel it should have been called Fifty Shades Lighter. 

I shall thus, ironically, let Ana rather aptly convey my emotions as I left the cinema and headed home:

Image: Tumblr

P.S. And here's the trailer for your perusal. Enjoy (or not.)

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