Tyler Krenzin
Lantern Staff
Here we go, I never knew I would be dragged back into this situation, but at the request of many and my own secret passion, the Fifty Shades franchise and I meet again. In the weeks leading up to this sinful event, I found myself growing ever more passionate about writing this review. All this passion and excitement were quickly snuffed out of the air like a cigarette on Christian’s skin. Here we go, I never knew I would be dragged back into this situation, but at the request of many and my own secret passion, the Fifty Shades franchise and I meet again. In the weeks leading up to this sinful event, I found myself growing ever more passionate about writing this review. All this passion and excitement were quickly snuffed out of the air like a cigarette on Christian’s skin.
“JESUS CHRIST,” I said to my good buddy, Austin, as we walked out of the theater.
“That, and I mean this seriously, was probably the worst thing I’ve ever seen in my life!” Austin said, (to be fair, Austin uses this expression for everything) but after a solid two seconds of thought, I had reached the same conclusion. It really was that bad, the best experience that we had in this under-packed opening night, was when the Mama Mia trailer played, and Austin and I sang to our hearts’ content. This just shows how invested anybody could’ve been in this movie.
This was a snooze fest outside of the, and I’m not exaggerating, 20 sex scenes. At least this movie knew what it was, nothing more than clean smut to market towards women and taking advantage of the larger demographic of teenagers. This terrifies me: How in the world is this movie allowed to give off the tone that the relationship between Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) and Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) is in any case heathy for either individual. This wouldn’t work in the real world. His controlling nature, which is caused by the abuse he suffered as a child, is at some points just abuse, and Anna just sits there and takes it. What message is that sending to the number of young women who are watching this movie? Not a good one.
Like the other two movies in this uninspiring trilogy, this movie has its completely laughable points, none of which the director had intended for this movie. My personal favorite, and new front-runner for worst but best moment in the series, is when Christian decides to punish Anna for not listening to him, and decides to let Anna know how he feels when she disobeys him. This is followed by the most graphic scene of all the three films. Christian whisks away Anna to the red room for a night of well needed passion when Christian grabs the dreaded vibrator. We can assume what happens after he grabs the vibrator, so after almost reaching the point of *ugh* climax, Christian rips the vibrator away. This happens two or three times until Anna finally yells the safe word.
“What the hell was that!” Austin said. He could barely keep the tears from running down his face.
“That might be the most *expletive* up thing I have ever witnessed,” I said, still short of breath as I couldn’t stop laughing. Why, just why, maybe it was in the books, but what director sits there and decides: “You know what, this pseudo-rape scene will be ok to throw in this movie.” Honestly, it wouldn’t be so bad if that wasn’t the last time we heard about that moment. Instead of making these D-list actors act, we just get: “Damn, that was weird, want to go to my house in Aspen that has never been mentioned in the series until now?” It’s just embarrassing how little conflict there is in this movie.
They get married, and after the wedding, Anna gets all up in arms that Christian doesn’t want kids. Really, isn’t that a question that should be settled before the wedding? Don’t worry though that conflict is immediately resolved when Anna gets pregnant, and Christian reconciles with the woman who sexually abused him as a teenager. Weird, huh? It takes 30 minutes for Christian to give up on the argument and it’s resolved without any real conflict.
When we finally see Anna tell Christian she is pregnant, we almost (key word “almost”) see some acting, but Christian storms out, which nearly resolved that crisis.
All the while, we deal with the Jack Hyde (Jackal and Hyde reference), or, like anything else in this movie, it’s rather just shoehorned in. Other than the chase scene that was a pretty long Audi commercial, we finally get action in the last scene as our neighborhood stalker, Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), takes Christian’s sister, Mia (Rita Ora), and holds her hostage. In return, Hyde wants a lot of Christian’s money. Anybody can see this as a disheveled attempt to get closer to Anna. To make a long and boring action part short, Anna shoots Hyde with a gun that was foreshadowed in the first 15 minutes of the movie that viewers knew from the beginning that someone would get shot. This comes moments after Hyde kicks her so hard in the stomach that it would later put her in a coma. At this time, there are so many plot holes which are not resolved that I almost forgot an hour and a half before this she was pregnant.
Even with the kick to the stomach and a coma, her pregnancy is safe. Anna and Christian move into their dream house to start a family, and everything is happily ever after. The ending scene with Anna and Christian reunited could have been set to be the raunchiest part of the entire history of the film, “The ‘go big or go home moment’ for the trilogy, and I guess the actors were tired, so they just went home.”
Nothing. Three full movies of nothing, but sex. We can’t even get a grand finale, which just encapsulates how right I was with my review of Fifty Shades Darker.
What amounts to nothing, but foreplay and disappointment. We only get the equivalent of foreplay when it comes to acting, foreplay when it comes to plot and amateur hour when it comes directing. A big jumbled mess with no real conflict, story or resolution shows just how invested anybody was in making Fifty Shades Freed anything more than a movie with sex in it. 2.2/10
Side note: Austin and I had to make this movie interesting somehow, so we came up with a little three-part wager:1. Over/Under 10 times we would get nudity in a scene. Winner: Over (Way over!!)2. Over/Under five scenes with crying in it. Winner: Over3. Over/Under two scenes with “Butt Stuff.” Winner: Under
