FIFTY SHADES FREED – Review

What does the FREED in the title actually mean (if you aren’t referring to the audience finally escaping this dreadful trilogy)? In author E.L. James’ world perhaps it’s in relation to series star Anastasia Steele gaining the strength in this film to bark back at her possessive boyfriend-turned- husband. But this idea of freedom is confusing since neither the author or director James Foley (now on his second entry in the series) acknowledge fully how she gains her strength. Is she freed because she has come to terms with simply following his orders or does she feel free in those moments of defiance? Once again, this is just another example of a film series that is just as knotty when it comes to handling romance as they do thematic elements.

Just like the previous films in this mishandled trilogy, FIFTY SHADES FREED might have been more successful if it would treat the overly serious proceedings with a little more levity and soap opera theatrics. Attempting to approach the material in a serious manner just makes the proceedings that much more painful to watch. From the preposterous Cinderella story turned thriller to the asinine dialogue, this final entry delivers exactly the type of climax we’ve been anticipating: a long, drawn-out date that doesn’t know how to stimulate the mind or the body.

But leave it to Mr. Grey to “know” what’s good for the audience. His controlling persona is taken to another level this time as he frequently chastises Anastasia for things such as wanting to take her top off at a nude beach in France, not wanting to change her last name after they are married, or even enjoying a night out with one of her friends without him. Grey’s dominance over her life extends past the bedroom into all aspects of her life. Why Ana or anyone in the audience is smitten with this manipulative, trust-fund brat is beyond me. Furthermore, it continues to paint an unhealthy portrait of a “dom & sub” relationship for the soccer-mom book-of-the-month-club readers who don’t know any better.

While the previous films aimed for steamy and sultry and fell somewhere between languid and prude, FREED leans more into thriller territory. Needless to say, their approach to tension and thrills is as disastrous as its approach to sex in the last two. The first hour of the film is snooze-worthy. The mystery of who is putting the newly married Greys in danger and why is met with the same eye roll that the actors are practically doing on camera. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson can no more convince me that they believe in this material than me believing that the studio will let this franchise die if this makes another $500 million at the box-office. This isn’t award-winning prose, and now the actors seem to have finally realized this mid-sentence. Let’s just hope that they’re both smart enough to not get roped into another despite the book series coming to a close.

One thing that Foley is having more fun with this go around is the sexual fun. The scenes are a lot more playful this time around and have loosened a bit in its depiction of deviance and non-vanilla sex. A scene later on begins with sneaking downstairs for a midnight snack, and then slyly turns into a sexy and sticky exchange involving ice cream. Despite its inherent awkwardness, the scene ends up being one of the highlights of the film due to Foley’s calculated approach and the actors (finally) feeling more relaxed.

In many ways this might be the worst of the three films because it is an amalgamation of all of the bad elements from each of the films. It’s essentially three movies in one and none are good. You have a bad romance, a problematic bedroom-fantasy, and a boring thriller, all packaged together in one famously bad trilogy. That being said, FIFTY SHADES is still the most sex we’ve seen from a major film studio in quite some time. That’s not a bad thing if it is a step towards Hollywood and the general public to stop viewing sex as a taboo subject. But as a series of films offering sleazy and steamy escapist fun… it’s obvious that they didn’t come close to fulfilling our needs.

Overall Score: 1 out of 5 

FIFTY SHADES FREED opens everywhere Feb. 9th