The new theatrical trailer for Fifty Shades of Grey was released, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that it’s unsexy, unappealing, and just straight-up boring. I mean, the movie was never really going to have a strong story if they stuck to the book, and unfortunately, it seems that they have stuck to the book. The author, E.L. James, reportedly had stipulations in the deal about how faithful the film adaptation had to be to the novel, never mind that the novel first started out as Twilight fan fiction.
Anyway, the trailer has several scenes rehashed from the previous trailer, but the new additions seem to be more Christian Grey [Jamie Dornan] and Anastasia Steele [Dakota Johnson] sexy times. Except they’re not sexy. Jamie Dornan is all steam, but watching Dakota Johnson on screen is still like watching a wet paper blanket. There’s no charisma, there’s no chemistry, there’s nothing.
There were rumors a few weeks back that Dakota Johnson’s sex scenes were being re-shot because they weren’t sexy enough, and after watching this, I totally believe it. The girl is not a natural on screen, and I’m now wondering if Universal owes some sort of debt to her famous parents. Why cast someone this intentionally charisma-less? Even Kristen Stewart, whose acting abilities were widely derided in the Twilight films, had some semblance of a screen presence in the first few Twilight movies.
Several of the cringe-worthy lines in the novel have also stayed in the movie, such as when Anastasia asks, “Why are you changing me?” and Christian responds, “I’m not. It’s you that’s changing me.”
I know they intended the effect to be swooning, but I’m just rolling my eyes over here. We don’t get to see Jamie Dornan’s dong, Dakota Johnson has no screen presence, the two have no chemistry with each other – this film is going to be even worse than I imagined.