“What Taylor-Johnson does best is balance atmosphere with action: desks, benches, bathtubs and red leather beds are all creatively employed, as is camerawork designed to show us plenty of skin with just a few full-frontal revelations,” wrote Weitzman.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Sheri Linden called the film a “well-cast conversation starter,” that is both “provocative and romance-novel gooey.”įilm critic Elizabeth Weitzman for the New York Daily News gave the movie three stars, and praised director Sam Taylor-Johnson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel.
“Here is a Valentine’s Day movie that will certainly make bank at the box office, but you aren’t helping yourself or anyone else by seeing it,” Craig wrote. The film is often degrading for confusing psychological imprisonment for a relationship.įifty Shades of Grey - video review Guardian “The result is a boring, drawn out call to a sex dungeon that takes an indeterminable amount of time to arrive. is a slick gray suit and a few million dollars,” writes Justin Craig for Fox. “The difference between ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’s’ enigmatic heartthrob Christian Grey and Ariel Castro. Still, the film never pretends to be other than what it really is: soft-core porn for the ladies, diluted with an ‘R’ rating.”įox News compared Dornan’s character to Ariel Castro, a sadistic Cleveland, Ohio, man who held three women captive in his house for more than a decade.
“Gone are the truly dreadful aspects of the book,” writes the Post’s Sara Stewart, “and the biggest surprise may be that Ana and Christian have developed senses of humor. The New York Post gave the film three out of four stars, calling it “steamy, cheesy” and “bound to please.” “Glossy, well cast, and a consistent hoot until it becomes a serious drag, this neo-‘9½ Weeks’ is above all a slick exercise in carefully brand-managed titillation – edgier than most grown-up studio fare, but otherwise a fairly mild provocation in this porn-saturated day and age,” wrote Chang.
The chief critic for Variety, Justin Chang, called the movie “not exactly whip-smart … but in many ways a significant improvement on EL James’ novel”.