Fifty Shades Darker (2017), R, ★

Gaze into his eyes and bite your lips once more...

Well...here we go again. We have another movie adaptation from this "masterful" series of books. Remember the hype about two and a half years ago? People, well, mainly the older female demographic, were clamoring for this movie because of the book. I have to admit I read a few snippets of the book and some of the dialogue in the book are terrible. Now, we have the first movie and it is one of the most boring and least sexy movies I've seen in some time and it was basically a sleepy music video with a stalker vibe to it. This movie is one of the best unintentional comedic soap-operas in recent years and it is thanks to an incoherent plot that piles on one storyline after another with the same tone of sexiness as the first one. It is not sexy.

Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) is now working in a new job as an assistant to Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), an editor at Seattle Independent Publishing (SIP). Jack shows more than a professional interest to Ana that she awkwardly looks away. Later that day, she attends an art exhibit where her friend, José (Victor Rasuk), has posted six very large portraits of herself being displayed without her consent. Anastasia gets upset but he replies that there was a buyer to purchase all six portraits. The buyer is revealed to be Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), who pleads with Anastasia to be with him again. She reluctantly answers that she will meet him up for lunch.

She acknowledges that she will get together with Jack as long as they have a standard relationship with some previous sexual activities. In sort of a sub-plot, Jack tries to later seduce Anastasia, making her uncomfortable. Christian warned Ana earlier in the movie regarding Jack's intentions. But, Christian has shown interest to take over control and own SIP for several months now. However, as Jack flirts with Ana once more, Christian has him fired and Anastasia is appointing acting editor of SIP. As the relationship goes well, there's a few loose ends involving Elena Lincoln (Kim Basinger), a co-owner of her beauty salon, that inspired Christian to go into BDSM. And, Leila Williams (Bella Heathcoate), a former submissive ex-girlfriend who stalks Ana and mentally unstable, wants to come back into Christian's life.

Cheers to another garbage movie.

This movie is unbearable with some of the worst dialogue ever written. It is like a high school student with bad grades wrote the dialogue and story with basically a sexual fantasy and incoherence like it is some sort of diary. It is like watching a version of sex-crazed person's diary. This is baffling. I'm watching more of a structure than a movie because it is sequel because the ending in the first movie was sort of a cliffhanger. I had to admit the structure was better in its first 30 minutes, however, the movie becomes dim-witted when it piles on subplot after subplot and character after character. Also, the tension lacks when the mentally unstable girlfriend that looks like she just got out a horror movie that deflates the balloon completely and then we have some sort of helicopter crash to "heighten" the tension that is suspenseful as dry paint.

Jamie Dornan sort of adapts better here than in the first movie like he is a bit more engaged to Anastasia Steele than he was in the first movie. He look stoned and stalkerish in the first movie. I sort of bought into their chemistry a bit more. Dakota Johnson still gives a satisfying performance when interacting with him but individually, she felt more uncomfortable as an individual human being. Eric Johnson creates a cliched villain trying to seduce Anastasia. Bella Heathcoate looks like she was in another movie. Kim Basinger, even though it is great to see her in this type of erotic movie again, basically appears as the appropriate character who inspired the male dominant character because she has experience in these type of movies.

Director James Foley is at the helm this time and comparably, this movie is not as sleek as the first movie as it created a lavish style from a filmmaking standpoint. But, there is not much suspense because the dialogue is laughably bad involving some explicit language. Also, the narrative and structure is repetitive with Anastasia having to remind him that Christian could turn into the dominant figure at any moment and it is unbearable because if it were shown, then it is sufferable and contradicting because she wants a stable relationship. Why do I give it one star, though? Well, it is because there is a bit of erotic chemistry between Dornan and Johnson that sort of works and there is a bit of a heat but sometimes, it panders onto soft-core territory with the music that it turns into a music video. And, then, the soundtrack is fine. We have one more movie to go in this series and I hope they do not split the last movie into two parts. This is a putrid fantasy with incoherent storytelling that made me want to gouge my eyes out when it ended.

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