'Fifty Shades of Grey': The Review

I've read a chapter of the book (couldn't cope with any more of that weak dialogue), but thought the movie was solidly made and well cast (though Michael Fassbender would have been a better Grey).

So that was the most talked about adult film of the year then, a long awaited version of the EL James best seller - S&M for the M&S market. (I imagine a few of their brass curtain rings and drape ties will fly off the shelves in the coming weeks.)

Of course Marks's have nothing to do with the most designer dodgy movie since Mickey Rourke spent Nine-and-a-half weeks with Kim Basinger in the mid-1980s.

Instead we have assorted nice cars, aircraft and interesting hardware used in Christian Grey's seduction game.

Back in the 1970s, this sort of movie was reserved for the dirty mac brigade. Now it's more for Apple Mac aficionados.

Fifty Shades could have been one long designer advert with kinky bits, but like Fatal Attraction, this has more substance.

I've read a chapter of the book (couldn't cope with any more of that weak dialogue), but thought the movie was solidly made and well cast (though Michael Fassbender would have been a better Grey).

However, newcomer Dakota Johnson is terrific as Anastasia Steele; her character's journey from virginal English literature student to experimental submissive is a curious one spiked with lashings of humour; her giggles lighten the mood in all the right places, and when she does get her kit off she thankfully doesn't look like a supermodel or a gym-obsessed narcissist with rock hard abs.

Admittedly after the third time she was sans kit I did get the urge to yell: "Put some clothes on love, you'll catch your death"; I'm of that age when protecting your kidneys from chills takes precedence over eroticism.

Purists are bound to pick apart differences between the book and movie. As an outsider, Fifty Shades was great entertainment which ticked the most important box for any movie: it had the courage of its own convictions.

It was also good to see an innocent female protagonist who thankfully wasn't exploited in such a 'twilight' world; she turned out to be Grey's sexual equal.

Steele may have spent part of the movie tied up, but Anastasia was far more in control than her emotionally scarred tycoon boyfriend.

(He might be a kinky fetishist but he's also gallant enough to hold a girl's hair back when she's throwing up on his designer shoes).

We've seen plenty of Young Adult franchises started in recent years, so good to see an adult literary saga make the successful transfer to the big screen and leave the viewer wanting more.

Hopefully the inevitable follow ups will be as edgy and entertaining.

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