As I’ve mentioned before, I read the original “trilogy” of Fifty Shades books. I never got around to reading that cash-grab book, Grey, which is just the same story told through Christian Grey’s perspective instead of Anastasia Steele’s perspective. The trilogy – Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades Darker and Fifty Shades Freed – is terrible. The story is terrible. The sex is terrible. The characters are terrible. That being said, I enjoyed the first film in spite of myself. I enjoyed Dakota Johnson’s Ana in the first film, and I didn’t even find Jamie Dornan to be that wooden and poorly cast.
The first film was a record-breaking hit, and the filmmakers basically took a page out of the Twilight franchise (LITERALLY) and filmed the two sequels at the same time, which makes sense because there’s not much of a pause between the two books. In case anyone is wondering, yes, these films are very profitable. Fifty Shades of Grey ended up making about $560 million worldwide. Fifty Shades Darker made about $380 million worldwide. This is a billion-dollar franchise. So, here’s the first trailer for Fifty Shades Freed, the third and hopefully final film.
SPOILERS: I never saw the second film so I don’t know what they kept from the book and where they left off. I will tell you that the second book has an abrupt ending and EL James really wanted to string people along. I’ll also tell you that if you actually sit down and look at the chronology of the story, Ana and Christian meet, bang, break up, get back together, get engaged and get married within maybe six months’ time, and I’m being very generous. I believe that this is the film where the predominantly female audience gets a little bit of everything: light BDSM, a wedding, honeymoon sex, a pregnancy and a cartoonish villain with little real motive for the things he does. The plot is basically about Ana’s ex-boss, who is a massive sketchball, Jack Hyde. It’s all pretty stupid, but Ana gets to be the damsel in distress and whatever. Also: Ana gets pregnant like two seconds after they get married, because of course.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
well, that was fifty shades of painful.
Twilight is out again?
I never read the books, but I read these recaps: http://jennytrout.com/?p=3208
I laughed so hard!
Hates it!
This ^^^ You’d have to tie me to a chair and whip me to get me to watch Dakota Johnson and the rest of it. Plus the character gets pregnant by accident because her assistant kept changing her Gyno appointments. What??? She can’t even remember that birth control isn’t automatic? I hate these people and they aren’t even real!
Not even this bad trailer for a bad movie based on a bad book can kill my lust for Jamie Dornan. I find him so attractive.
Totally concur. Saw the first, haven’t gotten around to the second film-don’t know that I will. But hope he does Graham Norton again to promote this one-he’s hysterical.
Mia girl, I found him less attractive when he admitted to stalking a woman in real life fro a role.
But that’s all he has? Good looks? We know his personality is dull
A little clip of Dornan as adorkable, on Graham Norton:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqUuTLh6pHk
His American accent is so fing cringe though…
What a coincidence! Catman kept his Lear jet a secret from me too until we got married!
It’s so terrible. Lol.
God it looks beyond dreadful. But I’ve never read the books or seen the movies so it all looks awful to me.
The only entertaining thing about these movies is the hashtag “damie”, look it up on twitter and tumblr, that fandom is completely crazy. Sometimes laughing at insane fans can be pretty funny.
Although…some of the “damie” fans make me slightly worried for the safety of Dornan’s wife.
Jenny Trout’s take on it is also very entertaining.
Co-sign on Jenny Trout.
I read excerpts from the first book. I choked with laughter at the writing. My daughter had the same response. Best story I have heard is a woman who said her husband read passages in the voice of Gilbert Gottfried.
i think the wedding dress might be gorgeous…..
But why is it hanging from a chandelier?!?
I can’t believe Stephanie Meyers hasn’t sued for plagiarism yet when the author basically admitted she ripped her off. But then again E L James’s writing was sooooooooooo bad!
It wasn’t just a ripoff – it was originally Twilight fanfiction! Ana & Christian were Bella and Edward, I’m not even kidding.
Exactly, it was called Master of the Universe with Edward & Bella – E.L. James was known in fanfiction circles as Icy Snow Queen Dragon or something like that. She just changed the names to publish the story, otherwise it’s still an Edward & Bella fanfic. I’ve heard the teaser trailer for this last film is being called a rip off of Breaking Dawn 1 as the wedding sequences are very similar.
I’ll be glad when this whole franchise is done!
Ugh, not seeing this movie.
I can’t stand that girl’s face. I think it’s her teeth. She’s so unbearably unattractive and dull but I guess that’s what the filmmakers were going for… barf.
In that last picture above, where she’s wearing the creamy yellowish high-necked satin dress, her face looks exactly like her dad, Don Johnson’s. I was freaking out when I saw that–Don Johnson in a satin dress.
In that picture, I think he looks like a game show host and she looks like a contestant.
…that was way harsh, Ty.
I mean I loathe the books and its source material (twilight) so I’ll be passing on this too.
Also these two have as much chemistry as a rock
Will they keep in him punishing her for sunbathing topless on a French beach by giving her romantic love bites all over her body without her consent so she has to cover up for the rest of the holiday.
Ultra sexy…..
Ugh!
That’s exactly what I was thinking. I read the third book because it was on the shelf at the library and that beach scene is appalling. I hate how they’ve set it up here as an erotic interlude.
That’s the nature of bad fanfic. “Romantic” stories develope unrealistically fast because if the fic doesn’t have much going for it, the lemons keep it afloat and this particular fanfic had nothing but lemons to keep it going since the story was so so bad and not even the lemons were good.
The lemons were absolutely terrible. But a huge group of housewives and 15-year olds who had never read anything good gobbled this crap up. E L James must have sold the ugly little thing that she called her soul to get the marketing people she got.
lol
Was legit surprised there was another book and movie. So glad I’ve never read the books or seen the movies.
Well the books are SO BAD that if the film is simply mundane and cheesy, it’s actually a blessing.
I watched the second film finally, and Jaime’s acting got a lot better and more believable, thankfully. It also had more of a plot than the first movie, so it wasn’t so horrible. I’ll probably watch the last one, too.
I dunno, at least Hollywood is making films for women. Sure, it’s problematic af, but it’s also kind of fun and silly if you shut off the smart feminist part of your brain for a couple hours and just enjoy it.
I love this comment. Cause sometime you just need to shut off part of your brain. The world is just too hard now. I prefer a good stupid comedy, but they are also few and far between. I have read and seen these, and yes they are bad, but so cheesy and silly they are harmless. At least with the movies the really bad parts are toned down a bit, and Jamie is gorgeous. Hard to justify giving your money to this overly rich women who wrote a fan fiction story taken from the Twilight story though.
I’m all for mindless movies/tv.
I think I’m unable to shut off that part of my brain in all honesty given how utterly abusive this relationship is (they did ease off on it in the movies in fairness to them and they made Ana much less of a complete dimwit), if SO many women didn’t think this was romance, and saw it for what it was maybe I could accept it but they don’t.
Its sold as this thing we should all want, a rich white guy who buys us stuff….not a rich white guy who tracks our every move, takes over every aspect of our lives, forces you into a sexual relationship you’re not comfortable in, gets annoyed when you use the safe word, punishes you when you do something he deems to be wrong. Its so damaging.
Its also a slap in the face to anyone in a genuinely consenting sub/dom relationship as it paints them as something broken that needs to be cured with love.
And it’s SO badly written it makes my hair hurt. In short EL James can go suck my left nut
Exactly this
Yes. Its just a bad rape fantasy from someone who has never been raped. And this will never make me shut off my brain for a few hours.
PREACH!!
Do *so* many women think this is romance, though? I mean, I am anecdotal data of one, but of the 10-15 or so friends I know who’ve read the book/seen the film, no one is like “omg, Christian, so dreamy.”
Everyone I’ve spoken to admits it trashy and that they have a very unhealthy relationship. We just enjoy reading trashy things. *shrug*
Thank God for Black Panther !!
I haven’t seen or read any of these films or movies. But, I’ve read a lot of romance novels in my time, and I can say there is this sea change happening since 50 Shades where there are soooo many crappy romance novels available for free (digitally) on Amazon, and they all seem to be carbon copies of this. All written by really young girls who think that this is what love is.
These stories seem like such a weird, specific, niche fantasy to me. Heroine meet this hot billionaire who’s into BDSM (albeit, from my understanding, it’s a pretty vanilla-brand of BDSM, marked mainly by the fact that the “hero” is a kind of a controlling prick). He falls intensely in love with her (for some unknowable reason) and they get married, and fall into a pretty vanilla life. So, it’s supposed to be super-hot and kind of forbidden, but then he turns into a staid (yet still hot) married guy and he’s cool with that. This guy does not exist. And this whole fantasy doesn’t even make sense to me. Do you want BDSM or not? EL James must be a really strange person.
This x 1000. You nailed it!
I felt deep shame at reading these books! Mostly because Christian grey is not hot but actually pretty creepy and shows all the signs of being an abuser (showing up unannounced, being controlling about who Ana sees, what she wears, so. Many. Things.)
I feel the same way after reading ALL 3 books lol…just had to finish because I started🙄 He is not protective he is abusive and controlling. It is written so badly to explain away his abusive ways and why he needs to have control. Even when he’s angry at someone else she is scared because she thinks it’s her fault and doesn’t want anyone to ‘derail’ him…Putting the blame on others. There’s so much wrong with these books trying to convince adult/young women that it’s romantic!! Oh well, I cannot get back the $ and time spent reading this nonsense.
Couldn’t get through the book, liked the first film, couldn’t get through film two. The irony is that this applies both to Twilight and Fifty Shades
Jamie Dornan always looks so… *resigned* and uncomfortable in these pub photos; just like Sparkles, I know one actor who will be relieved when the last of these movies has swirled around the drain.
For a very funny & good-natured poke at both him and the books, here’s another cute clip from a different appearance he did on Graham Norton (+ bonus Julie Waters):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XNYUl2kq_Jk
She looks pregnant in the photos. o_O
I only read the first few pages of the first book. I am allergic to bad writing.
I enjoyed the first movie for what it was…bad acting and camp-ga-lore. The second movie was dreadful though. I don’t think I even made it through it.
In that picture, I think he looks like a game show host and she looks like a contestant.
There is nothing more to say …..
50 Shades of Shed … from Great Britain. Laugh out Loud.
https://twitter.com/50shedsofgrey