The day has come: Fifty Shades Freed, the final part of the film trilogy based on E.D. James sexy-violent Fifty Shades of Grey novels, hits movie theaters this weekend. Just in time for President’s Day! Oh, and Valentine’s Day, too, probably.
The Fifty Shades series is of course extremely popular with fans of actors Jamie Dornan (who stars as Christian Grey, the mysterious billionaire bachelor who mixes sex and violence at a level not seen since American Psycho) and Dakota Johnson (she plays Anastasia Steele, the female lead given little to do besides be amazed by Christian). Fans of the books like the movies, too, as do enthusiasts of all things BDSM.
Not fans: critics. Movie reviewers have not much cared for the Fifty Shades movies. The first two films in the series, Fifty Shades of Grey and Fifty Shades Darker, racked up 25 percent and 10 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, respectively. Fifty Shades Freed isn’t doing much better, currently sitting at 14 percent on the review aggregator.
Here are some of the funniest takes on Freed from critics who got so aggressively brutal with the movie that they probably should have established a safe word.
1. Peter Travers, Rolling Stone:
“Whips, chains, butt plugs and nipple clips are nothing compared to the sheer torture of watching this movie.”
2. Stephen Whitty, New York Daily News:
“Johnson and Dornan never connect. She rolls her eyes like a cranky teenager. He stares at her like a constipated cow. Even in bed, they act like they’re in separate rooms.”
3. Christopher Orr, The Atlantic:
“Fifty Shades Freed is precisely as atrocious as one might imagine. Which is to say, it is far worse than the first movie—which, though awful, in hindsight looks like Citizen Kane, only with more discussion of dildos.”
4. Katie Walsh, The Chicago Tribune:
“Christian, who has all the charm of a textbook narcissistic psychopath, wants to keep Ana to himself, wants her life to ‘begin and end’ with him and pouts that babies ruin sex. When she declares, ‘you’re my whole life,’ it’s presented as a romantic declaration, not a giant red flag of an emotionally abusive relationship. The film might as well be called ‘So I Married a Sociopath.'”
5. Anne Cohen, Refinery29:
“Seriously, for a movie that’s supposed to be the final stroke in some kind of galactic-level movie orgasm, they sure picked the people least likely to make that happen.”