Dakota Johnson gets a lot of the best lines and delivers them with the perfect amount of deadpan confusion, but Jamie Dornan gives the usually humorless Christian a comic edge too.
It doesn’t quite add up to make the movie a true thriller, but there’s certainly more to invest in than “Ana signing a legally unenforceable sex contract.” Even Rita Ora gets more lines!īut the biggest improvement in Darker is the humor, most of which is intentional. There’s more plot this time, with the introduction of Leila, Christian’s unstable former submissive, and Jack, Ana’s predatory new boss, plus the in-person appearance of Elena, the woman who taught Christian everything he knows about BDSM.
The music, too, is joyful, less high-end sex shop and more playful late-night romp.
Despite its title, it is literally less dark than the first movie - there are multiple scenes that are Baz Luhrmann levels of colorful, and Ana even gets to wear bright red in the big finale. What a time!įor starters, Fifty Shades Darker is better than Fifty Shades of Grey in every imaginable way. I went into this movie expecting that I would actively try to fall asleep, but I left thinking that I might actually pay to see it a second time with my own real money. This probably sounds like faint praise, but I assure you it’s not. It is with great happiness and a little bit of shock that I report that Fifty Shades Darker is not only not terrible, but that it is actually … kind of good.