50 Shades of Grey strategically had its official release date set for Valentine’s with Variety announcing the record breaking $94.4 million debut over the 4-days. The reviews, however, were not so generous.
The verdict? You are either going to be “okay” with it or hate it. Critics and most viewers are leaning towards the latter with IMDb giving it an unimpressive 4/10, based on 61,686 votes. ‘Bubab2’, a reviewer on IMDb, summed it up in one sentence saying the issues included, “the cruddy screenplay, the corny dialogue, the ridiculous script, the highly improbable storyline.”
There was a great deal of criticism on the much anticipated sex scenes too. Australian news anchor, Lisa Wilkinson, completely ripped into the movie, describing it as “domestic violence dressed up as erotica.” Ouch.
They weren’t all negative. After much scrolling (lots of scrolling to be precise), we found a positive review, surprisingly, from a male viewer. “The movie becomes an intriguing roller-coaster of emotions, decisions, psychological struggle and compromises for both partners who both love each other and want each other,” says ‘mowglilp’. He was pleasantly surprise.
Putting aside the downfalls mentioned by reviewers, it leads us to ponder the thought that maybe the book and people’s expectations were inflated prior to watching the film. We should also consider each person who had read the book created his or her own interpretation of the imagery. The scenes play out differently from what he or she created in their mind, consequently creating a huge anticlimax for the viewer (please, excuse the pun).
It could also be that less effort was interjected into the production process, as film investors already knew they would be bringing in the numbers purely based on the books following. If that was indeed the case, their box-office numbers proved them right.