50 Shades of Grey: A Man’s Perspective
Before I saw the movie, I did read the first book... well half of it anyway. Let's be real, 50 Shades of Grey isn't for the (straight) guys to begin with. But I do like to read, and my woman read the first two books in like 8 hours, so I figured I'd at least see what the hype was about.
First off, it's not well written. Anyone that reads novels (even the smut novels, or as I like to call them, women porn), will agree. That being said, I understand the fascination with the series. Men are often selfish, especially sexually, so the ladies need to get the more sensual stuff elsewhere a lot of times. I can't front... that's part of the reason I started reading 50 Shades to begin with. I did get bored with the book about halfway through, skimmed around a little bit past where I was, before I decided to give it up.
Now onto the movie. Me being the boyfriend that I am, I took the girlfriend to see it. I figured hey, why not? She goes to all my comic book related movies, I can take one for the team. And who knows... might get some ideas!
The Good:
- Excellent job casting the female lead: Dakota Johnson played the role of Anastasia Steele perfectly.
- The dialog was pretty much right from the book.
- Wardrobe and the sets were better than I had even imagined while reading the book.
- If you haven't read the book, it left you wanting to actually read it to see what you may have missed.
- The soundtrack was the bomb!!!
The Bad:
- Terrible job casting the male lead: Jamie Dornan just didn't convey Christian Grey's "sexy-billionaire-playboy-that-could-easily-get-any-woman-he-wants".
- The sex scenes were neither sexy or artistic. Neither of the leads had the correct chemistry.
- The movie seemed to draw on at certain points and a lot of filler could probably have been left on the cutting room floor.
- The acting performances as a whole weren't the greatest, even from the supporting cast.
- The ending... horrible. Although I didn't finish the book, I sure hope the first one didn't end like that.
I really did want to like the movie, but alas, it was not meant to be. Again, this is my male perspective only, so I might be way off. But I am a movie buff, in all genres, and this movie was 4 out of 10 stars... at best.