Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/792825
MARCH 1-7, 2017 UCW 23 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM Fifty Shades of Meh? Fifty Shades of Useless? Fifty Shades of Abysmal? It is hard to sum up exactly what I think of Fifty Shades Darker (118 minutes) in a succinct but devastating tagline when the internet has already said every mean thing far more effectively (and hilariously). But that doesn't mean I won't try. After reading the Fifty Shades tetralogy, I tried to find a hypnotherapist to erase it from my mind. Turns out, work that egregious leaves such a deep stain in the cerebellum that nothing can remove it. All for the best, really. Why would I want to erase such classic lines as, "Laters, Baby" and…nope, that's it. That line, repeated over and over again, mixed in with a 12-year-old's unimaginative, repetitive, and cloying idea of what a BDSM relationship might look like if both romantic partners had repeatedly been hit over the head with sandbags. The movie version managed to dial every bad thing from the book up to an 11. How to make Christian Grey's elderly rapist/business partner even grosser? Well, pump Kim Basinger full of botox and cast her in the role. Need to drain a little more life from the dialogue? Tell Dakota Johnson to play the character of Anastasia Steele as if she has just emerged from a coma and has never heard of sex before. Want to make the characters even more ridiculous than they were in the book? Turn Leila (Bella Heathcote) into a lifeless doll mumbling about her "Master" as if she were an understudy in an off-off-Broadway version of Dracula, The Musical. To be fair, E.L. James already did most of the heavy lifting on that one. The film begins with an art show. Ana's "friend" that pawed at her when she was almost passed out drunk that one time has filled his art show with terrible photography starring, you guessed it, everyone's favorite love doll, Ana herself. Instead of heading to the nearest police station to get an order of protection, she decides that this was not intensely creepy and inappropriate just in time to find out that someone has bought all the art from the show. Not to burn, as I first thought, and not to put up, either. Apparently, Christian Grey is still stalking his ex-girlfriend and can't bear to have anyone else buy the photographs, so he bought them. Um, Christian, those photos were terrible, so you could have saved the $50 they probably cost — nobody was going to buy them anyway. After spending five minutes pretending that she might say no to the sexy young millionaire offering to change his entire personality just for her, Ana and Christian are back together. And since sexuality is something you can change at will, Christian will no longer be into spankings, handcuffs, zip ties or anything else that made the first movie a cheesy masterpiece. Well, I'm glad they figured that out so quickly, but found myself wondering what the other hour and 40 minutes would be about. It turns out the rest of the film is jam-packed with exciting scenes like boring sex in a shower. Twenty minutes of shopping for a millionaire's masquerade ball. Twenty minutes of cocktail party chatter at a millionaire's masquerade ball. Boring former submissives boringly wrecking cars off-camera. Boring sex in bed. Boring people having boring sex on a yacht filled with servants. And, finally, a boring antagonist shaking his fist at Christian and Ana's happy ending to set up the third film. Overall, at least I was able to laugh at Fifty Shades of Grey. Fifty Shades Darker took the bold step of removing most of the BDSM sex that made the book so fun to laugh at, leaving nothing more than a lifeless puddle of eighth-grade level prose. No, I take it back. That is an insult to eighth-graders, who, on the whole, are much better writers than anyone who put pen to paper to create the dreck I just suffered through. Now playing at Patriot 14 + IMAX. Chuckle, Guffaw, Giggle Fifty Shades Darker (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer. COMMENTS? Editor@ upandcomingweekly.com. 910 484-6200. Expires 4/30/17 WITH THIS COUPON $i. 50 Drinks. $i. 50 Drinks. $i. 50 Drinks. $2.00 before 6:00 p.m. $3.00 after 6:00 p.m. $1.00 extra for 3D MOVIES Movie Monday: $1.50 All Day(Holiday or 3D movies excluded) Buy one get one free! Buy one get one free!