TANGENTS: 'Fifty Shades' fails in acting, writing despite successful opening

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Nick Rieth, Zach Watson and Casey Picillo are telecommunications majors and write Tangentsfor the Daily News. Their views and opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the Daily News. Write to them at zhwatson@bsu.edu. Listen to their radio show from 7 to 8 p.m. Sundays on WCRD.

Casey Picillo
Nick Rieth
Zach Watson

For most of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” the Tangents Team was desperately wishing for Christian Grey to slide one of his blindfolds over our eyes and save us from the screen, or even go a little further and put our weary, assaulted eyes to sleep.

Throughout this atrocity we follow the life of Anastasia Steele, a graduating college student, who becomes involved with the wealthy businessman Christian Grey after a chance meeting. The whole story hinges on this supposedly interesting (or rather, complicated and yawn-inducing) relationship that feels more like a business agreement arranged by Donald Trump.

We barely cared about the characters, and when a glimmer of intrigue reared its head near the end of the film, the writers decided to leave it limply hanging, begging for a money-trap sequel filled with more spectacularly boring sex. In short, this movie has an abundance of climaxes, but none of them are remotely exciting or even interesting. The creators should be bound, flogged and whipped.

The color scheme of the film is fitting (grey), and the cinematography is sufficiently pleasing, though nothing amazing. Acting falls by the wayside, though the performance by Jamie Dornan, who played Christian Grey, was reasonable. Dakota Johnson’s portrayal of Anastasia so closely resembled a wooden board, a tree should have been cast to liven things up.

We found ourselves often laughing, but not because it was funny; it was uncomfortable and awkward, the perfect Valentine’s Day affair/date-night movie. If we were a fly on the wall in many of this movie’s repulsive sex scenes, we could only hope some kind human being would do us a service and smack us with the swatter.

“Fifty Shades of Grey” feels like an unrestrained (or rather, forcefully restrained) “Twilight” knock-off, because it is.

The Tangents Team is fully aware this film's source material is less than sterling; however, this does not mean we condone Hollywood’s decision to bring it to the big screen. While it’s questionable if this content has a home anywhere, it’s certainly not in the theater house.

The amount of sex was memorable, the sex itself was definitely not. We’re already preparing our poor eyes for the sequel, which is bound to be erected in honor of the $81.7 million opening weekend “Fifty Shades” enjoyed. We can fall asleep easily enough in our own homes, thank you very much.

Rating: 2/10

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