Fifty Shades of Grey

So sue me:  a group of us went to see this movie.  I was curious about what exactly was so exciting so many people, and I'm just not willing to devote the time necessary to read the three books. 

The Thursday night theater was 90% full.  About 80% of the attendees were women.  The crowd had the sort of nervous energy you'd expect before a bull fight--or in an old-fashioned porn theater.

An hour later, the sounds I'd heard most were laughter--and almost never at the movie's intentional jokes.  This film frequently was so bad it was funny.

Most of the time, though, it was dull.  Deadly dull.  Dakota Johnson, the female lead, had two moves:  look up from under the hair, and bite the lip.  Sometimes, she used them at the same time, a combination that seemed to be more than her co-star could resist.  Neither worked for me.  There was not a single second in the movie in which I found her hot, including when she was naked.

Johnson was, however, Katharine Hepburn and Meryl Streep combined in comparison to Jamie Dornan, who looked at all times as if he was seeking a way out of the film.  Though I never found Johnson hot, she was at least clearly human; Dornan could easily have been a CGI character, the Jar Jar Binks of kink. 

Speaking of the kink, which I gather was supposed to be a key part of the books, I can say only that if you are considering this movie for that reason, you'd be better off staying home and trolling for porn snippets.  The kink scenes had all the heat of a blast chiller.  Not since Eyes Wide Shut have I found sex scenes this dull. 

It probably sounds like I hated the movie.  I didn't.  Two hours passed relatively painlessly and with a modicum of giggles.  To hate it, I'd have to care about it, and I didn't.  Nothing in it ever made me care about either lead character or what they would do.

Because I haven't read the books, I can't tell you if liking them will make you like this movie, but perhaps it will. 

Me, I'm looking forward to the real star of this weekend's films, Kingsman.