Vicky Sparks
Leave your whips and chains at the door and get your safe word ready if you’re brave enough to endure the last film of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
Fifty Shades Freed begins with a very quick wedding before Mr. Grey (Jamie Dornan) whisks his new bride off on a honeymoon in Europe, where he immediately chastises her for going topless on a beach – in France.
Yes, poor Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) can still do no right - her free will continues to upset all of her husband’s dark and dirty plans.
But never fear! Before she can be adequately punished for having thoughts, the Grey’s are called home to deal with a corporate espionage emergency perpetrated by Ana’s former boss Jack Hyde.
When did the former fiction editor become a master of corporate espionage you might ask? No time to wonder about that because it’s time for Ana to return to her job. Not her old job as a 23-year-old assistant to the fiction editor at a publishing house, but her new job, because while she was away on her honeymoon she got a promotion!
It turns out she was such a great assistant for the 10 days or so she had the job that when her boss was fired (in the last movie) they just decided to promote her!
That’s right, Ana Steele is now the fiction editor and she gets her very own assistant! Named Hannah. That’s right, Ana and Hannah.
This insanity all takes place in the first 10 minutes of the movie. To say that it gets worse is an understatement.
But let’s be honest, the plot of the Fifty Shades trilogy isn’t why the first two films have grossed almost a billion dollars. Setting the plot aside, I will say that this final chapter is the lightest on scenes of an adult nature.
Dornan and Johnson continue to have the chemistry of an orange and a lamp (that is to say, none) and their ability to hide their disdain for each other and the terrible films in which they find themselves trapped has begun to fail them.
To say this movie is bad is an offence to bad movies. It is atrocious. But because it fails in such a big and bold way it becomes a little bit wonderful. It will incite you to yell at the screen in a public theatre and make you laugh (unintentionally of course) until you cry.
If you’ve seen the first two installments then you know what you’re in for and might as well finish it off – but fair warning, this is the worst of the three.
Nevertheless, find a few friends in need of a laugh, grab a glass of wine and you just might enjoy an inadvertently hilarious night out.
Vicky Sparks is a Bright’s Grove native and movie critic for Global TV’s The Morning Show, which airs nationally on Fridays. Her Journal Reviews cover movies playing at Galaxy Cinemas Sarnia