50 Shades of Grey

This review may contain spoilers!

It's essentially a porno with less sex and just that really awkward plot and bad acting, but really you know what you're getting walking into that cinema. I would give 50 Shades of Grey a 3/10.

The one thing I immediately do encourage you to do is rather than see the film just listen to the soundtrack; it essentially makes the film. Also I have to admit the cinematography was great, just some spectacular long and wide shots that captured beautiful sequences such as helicoptor flight through the city or driving at night.

Max Martini, who played Taylor, did a good job in a minor role; he certainly gave the most consistent and realistic performance.

Dakota Johnson, who played Anastasia Steele, gave the best performance of the film. To be fair she still had to slew through a lot of terrible dialogue and she had no chemistry with pretty much anyone onscreen but from what I'm aware of when it comes to production that's honestly no surprise. What I really want to give Johnson credit for is her ability to still manage to show a great emotional range as well as the moments of the film where we saw humour or personality that we can quite clearly identify as belonging to her. She's one of the only people who managed to bring some genuine personality to this cold film.

Well to begin with I need to counter what I said previously about the good cinematography with the film's bad editing; the way it was put together felt slow and everything lingered a lot longer than it should have. What was really frustrating was this long drawn out plot that went absolutely nowhere, It was one of the more maddening films I've seen in my life. Essentially the romance is very forced and is replaced with a relationship that you read as more creepy and abusive than anything that's even remotely romantic or erotic. I'd describe it as more of a stalker film or a predator film than I would a modern romance.

Jamie Dornan, who played Christian Grey, was terrible at connecting with anyone; his entire character was more menacing than romantic and he seemed capable of portraying only one emotion and tone. Eloise Mumford, who played Kate, was a shockingly over the top actress who's rampant interest in her fiend's sex life seemed borderline unhealthy to say the least. Victor Rasuk, who played Jose, was apparently someone who had a strong friendship/relationship with Anastasia already; however this was not played well at all and to top it off he was punished for doing exactly what Christian was doing to Anastasia all film proving to us all that as long as your rich you can be a bad person. Marcia gay Harden, who played Mrs Grey, was a nothing character; her screen presence was minimal and it was unclear why she was even in the film.