Roll Your Eyes: Movie Review 50 Shades of Grey

Or as Christian Grey famously says, “Don’t roll your eyes.  If you do you’ll be punished.”  Or something along those lines.  I went to see the movie with a friend.  I had read the books but she had not.  She rolled her eyes A LOT.  I’ve read reviews of the movie by big time movie reviewers and they all hated the movie.  Why?  Because of cheesy dialog, improbable situations, degradation of women, and bad acting.  Well then.  Here’s the bottom line.  If you had read the books you would have known all about the cheesy dialog, improbable situations, and degradation of women.  But you would also know that, in the end, Anastasia Steele comes out on top, so to speak.  While the movie was playing, my friend would lean over and ask, “Laters baby”, really?  “Her biting her lower lip is getting annoying.” Or, “Rolling her eyes, really?”  She even picked up on the fact that Christian always wore the same ripped jeans in the Red Room which barely hung off of his hips.  Yes, for those of you who read the book you know those are all in there.  Thank goodness they left out all of the “oh mys”.  As far as the sex is concerned, you’d really see more on cable’s Spartacus.  They did have some quick camera angles so as to cut away right before it became X instead of an R rating.  There is a lot of Dakota Johnson writhing around on a bed being teased with a peacock feather or a soft whip.  Some slight views of the pubic area, again R rather than X.  And quite a bit of the ta ta’s and back sides.  I’ve heard that some women who saw the movie with friends were embarrassed being there with said friends because of the sex.  Nonsense.  As I said, you can see more sex on cable.  There’s only about 20 minutes of any sexual escapades.  I read that in the Director’s Cut for the DVD they’ve added 10 minutes which would have made the movie NC 17.

Dakota Johnson does a good job of portraying the vulnerability of Anastasia.  She’s believable in an unbelievable character, if that makes sense.  You can see her emerging from her chrysalis.  Jamie Dornan, on the other hand, is nice to look at but that’s about all he imparts in his Christian.  He has this weird feature about his mouth.  If you go see the movie, let me know if you think I’m right.  He really does have a difficult part to play.  It was probably hard for him not to laugh while saying some of his dialog.  “You’re mine!!!!”  He actually went on Jimmy Fallon and they read lines from the book in different accents.  Very funny.  Here it is if you missed it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzS8ANZBRNo.  He’s set to do the next two so I guess we’re stuck with him.  The movie is beautifully shot and certainly with loving eyes on all of Christian’s wealth from his Audis to his helicopter to his lavish bachelor pad.  My friend said she wouldn’t go to the theater to see the next two but would probably see them on pay per view.  I’ll see them.  The movie was just cheesy fun just like the books.

By the way, have you ever wondered why gray/grey is spelled two ways?  I always thought gray was the color and Grey was the way you spelled a person’s name.  Nope.  Grey is the British way and gray is the American way.  Just satisfied your curiosity I’ll bet…