Reviews for this film from our members:
- Rick Aragon @ Rick’s Cafe Texan
- Excerpt: The film version of Fifty Shades of Grey is no better (than the book), and what’s worse, does what no film about carnal knowledge should ever do: it makes sex boring.
- Jason Bailey @ Flavorwire
- Excerpt: It’s not, as you might’ve heard, this year’s ‘Showgirls’; there are some interesting scenes, some strong supporting performances (particularly by Marcia Gay Harden, who breezes in for a couple of scenes and really classes up the joint), and a flat-out terrific leading turn by Dakota Johnson, who knows this material is basically ridiculous and plays the comedy of it, to great effect. But it’s also too flawed to recommend — much of the dialogue is irredeemably goofy, the sex scenes are straight out of Red Shoe Diaries, Dornan is a cipher, and the slicked-up portrait of the lives of the rich is straight out of an early-‘90s Michael Douglas movie.
- Nicholas Bell @ Ioncinema
- Kevin Carr @ 7M Pictures
- Excerpt: When you look at is as nothing more than horny housewife erotic fiction, it serves its purpose.
- Bill Clark @ From The Balcony
- Excerpt: Fifty Shades of Grey may be the first film in history made specifically for the purposes of hate-watching.
- Laura Clifford @ Reeling Reviews
- Excerpt: …director Sam Taylor-Johnson attempts to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, but while she leavens the experience with some well mined character humor and gives the production a glossy sheen, you can only put so much lipstick on a pig.
- Jim Dixon @ Examiner.com
- Billy Donnelly @ This Is Infamous
- Mark Dujsik @ Mark Reviews Movies
- Excerpt: Anastasia is a problem. Christian is one, too. We spend most of the movie trying to figure out which character is the bigger one.
- James Jay Edwards @ FilmFracture
- Excerpt: Fifty Shades Of Grey’ Is Destined For Life As A Cult Classic Midnight Movie
- [New – 10/29/15] | Hugo Gomes @ http://cinematograficamentefalando.blogs.sapo.pt/ [Portuguese]
- Sarah Gopaul @ Digital Journal
- Excerpt: ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ is an almost effortless improvement on the book in some respects, but in others it completely misses the mark.
- Susan Granger @ www.susangranger.com
- Excerpt: Although Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan lack erotic chemistry, this fetishistic fantasy remains faithful to the provocative novel.
- Vadym Grygoriev @ kinoblog.com [Ukrainian]
- Roderick Heath @ Ferdy on Films
- Excerpt: The ultimate frustration of Fifty Shades of Grey is that it’s neither gleeful camp festival nor genuinely interesting tale of sexual gamesmanship, but stuck between the two. Much like its heroes, its own scrupulousness has doomed it to eternal dissatisfaction—at least until the sequel.
- Blake Howard @ Graffiti With Punctuation
- MaryAnn Johanson @ FlickFilosopher.com
- Excerpt: A charm-free hero with control issues and a passive, fretful heroine have coy and tediously vanilla pretend-sex. This is meant to be erotic?
- Charlie Juhl @ Citizen Charlie
- Excerpt: I would say the emperor has no clothes here, but as is the case, the emperor is strategically swaddled in sheets lest you get a peek of his unmentionables.
- Jeremy Kibler @ The Artful Critic
- Excerpt: Fifty Shades of Grey is glossy and watchable for curiosity seekers, but it mostly leaves one cold and not in need of a cold shower.
- Kristin Dreyer Kramer @ NightsAndWeekends.com
- Glenn Lovell @ CinemaDope.com
- Excerpt: As silly and, yes, sanctimonious as this adaptation is, it deserves mention as one of the first major studio releases in ages to promote sex over vigilante violence or superherodom … And that, in a peculiar way, makes this film a refreshing departure.
- Dan Lybarger @ KCActive.com
- Excerpt: Most porn directors have the decency not to make viewers suffer through 40 minutes of shallow, cringe-inducing courtship before fulfilling their promises.
- Nell Minow @ The Movie Mom
- Jared Mobarak @ The Film Stage
- Pat Mullen @ Cinemablographer
- Excerpt: Fifty Shades of Grey is like a nice, tastefully-made dirty movie by Ron Howard, but boring.
- Stefan Pape @ HeyUGuys
- João Pinto @ Portal Cinema [Portuguese]
- Excerpt: É simplesmente um mau filme….
- Jason Pirodsky @ Expats.cz
- Excerpt: Shocker! This film adaptation of E.L. James’ Fifty Shades of Grey, the bestselling but (largely) poorly-received erotic novel that began life as a piece of Twilight fan-fiction, is not terrible. No, it’s almost good. I know, I know. I was just as surprised.
- Jerry Roberts @ Armchair Cinema
- Excerpt: At a time when nudity and four-letter words have slipped onto basic cable and the internet provides free porn 24/7, here is a commercial product that offers steamy sex that is – in a word – tepid. You go in expecting something hot and spicy but if you put it on the Scoville Scale it would barely register above a bell pepper.
- Tom Santilli @ Examiner.com
- Excerpt: My guess is for newcomers, there will be mild disappointment and a sense of that’s what all the hype was about?”, but that ultimately, fans will feel good about it.”
- Sarah Ward @ Trespass Magazine
