* outta *****

1 outta 5

Fifty Shades Freed is the final installment in the Fifty Shades trilogy, based on the trio of novels.  The studio showed some restraint in making the final book only 1 movie, and the shortest one in the series, which is thankful considering the tendency to stretch the final book into two-part adaptations. (That didn’t turn out too well for the never coming final installment of Divergent).  This movie is bad even by Fifty Shades standards, which is already pretty low to begin with.  Even the title doesn’t make a lick of sense.  Who is being freed?  From what?  From anything?  Or maybe it’s Freed because the actors and audiences don’t have to endure this tripe anymore.  Okay, it’s probably that. 

Anastasia (Dakota Johnson) is marrying the billionaire Christian (Jamie Dornan).  Her and her new husband have a dominant / submissive sexual relationship that involves a lot of whips and chains, however it bleeds over into their regular life with him being a domineering jerk.  Things get more complicated when Anastasia’s former abusive boss, Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson) is stalking them.  The newlyweds are settling into domestic life but Anastasia is chaffing against Christian’s rules and the looming shadow of parenthood threatens to derail their extravagant lifestyle.

As the lead, Johnson tries desperately to inject some life into a thinly written, dull, whiny, wish fulfillment character.  A line delivery or two has some spark as her dry observations about her newly rich life are decent.  But mostly she has to deliver clunker after clunker of terrible dialogue.  Dornan fares even worse, mumbling his lines and looking vaguely ticked.  Christian is such an overbearing wacko there’s no reason why these two are supposed to be in love.  The only times Dornan’s Christian comes off as vaguely interesting when he, somewhat badly, sings “Maybe I’m Amazed” (which probably cost a bundle to license) and his shoddy singing voice is the only thing about Christian that isn’t perfect.  Also when Christian stagers in drunk, Dornan somehow wrings a few laughs out of stumbling around.

One thing that is really irritating is that the movie doesn’t fill the audience in on any back story as characters are mentioned from the last movie with little to no context on how they fit.  Hyde is supposedly the bad guy which feels awkward as Johnson just sort of hollers angrily.  There are a couple of supporting characters, Christian’s brother Elliot (Luke Grimes) and Anastasia’s best friend Kate (Eloise Mumford) who are there mostly to talk about how great Christian and Anastasia are.  

There’s a bit where Anastasia gets uppity about a house designer played by Arielle Kebbel, who wants to knock down the old house Christian bought.  Sure, the designer comes off as a bit snooty saying she wants to put in a “state of the art Smart Home” but Anastasia immediately dials it up to 11, convinced the designer is hitting on her husband.  Anastasia is usually a perfect lady who is compassionate towards everyone but she suddenly becomes a shrew here.  Maybe it’s meant to signify that Christian’s jealous tendencies are rubbing off on her but there’s no follow through.  It’s just a dopey, nonsense scene in a dopey, nonsense story. 

This is a good looking movie with good looking people in good looking locales.  The grittiest the setting ever gets is a hostage situation in a back alley in the middle of the afternoon which doesn’t seem like the smartest place to stage it but nobody in these films are particularly intelligent, even though Anastasia and Christian keep insisting that everyone is the best at what they do.  

But the cinematography by John Schwartzman makes the whole thing look rather slick.  Like in Bond films, there are long pans of very expensive Rich People Stuff than no other reason than to show off Rich People Stuff.  The closest the movie gets to an action scene is when Anastasia has to outrace a pursuing car which is decidedly dull.  At the end, there’s a nicely composed shot of the door closing on Anastasia showing that the damn series is finally over, aside from a meaningless post-credits scene of Anastasia and Christian in marital bliss that didn’t need to be there. 

There’s also some downright shoddy filmmaking.  Christian kicks off the film with beard stubble, the guy didn’t even bother to properly shave for his wedding, then they run off on a honeymoon, then Anastasia arrives back at her job and Christian walks in sporting a full beard.  Then she says “You need a shave” and in the next scene he’s back to beard stubble!  It smells like the scene was a reshoot but Dornan couldn’t shave so they said “To hell with it, he grew a beard in a day because Christian Grey is that manly!” 

As an ending to this series that has been befuddling audiences for years, Fifty Shades Freed at least doesn’t tease out any more installments.  The movies have been odd, stilted, confusing, dull affairs.  Happily, audiences never again have to see these two vapid idiots with their rich people problems and deviant sex.   Assuming the studio doesn’t remake it.