The Fifty Shades Darker reviews are in... and they're not great

Some early reviews for ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ have arrived… and it’s looking pretty ugly.

Critics have not warmed to Christian and Anastasia much, it would seem, since they rounded on the first movie, the 2015 hit ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’.

One even spoken about ‘open laughing’ at their screening, and not in a good way.

Alonso Duralde on The Wrap writes: “It’s nice that the two photogenic leads are treating sex like a pleasurable activity rather than an onerous chore in this second entry, but overall, the film plays like an un-asked-for collaboration between the Hallmark and Playboy Channels.”

Geoffrey Macnab in The Independent is similarly unmoved, calling it ‘a drippy romantic drama with a few mildly transgressive scenes’ and objecting to its accompaniment of ‘syrupy rock music’.

“Fifty Shades Darker is an ordeal to watch not because of its gothic eroticism but because of its utter blandness,” he writes.

In The Hollywood Reporter, John DeFore writes: “[Screenwriter] Leonard and [director] Foley offer enough semi-naked sex scenes here to prove that quantity is no substitute for chemistry.

“Both leads are attractive and look good without clothes, but the roteness of their bulge-flexing intimacies is such that when, near the film’s end, the movie showed off Mr. Dornan’s physique in a gym scene, women at Wednesday’s preview screening were openly laughing at the contrivance.

“How can the filmmakers keep a straight face when they have Anastasia complaining about Christian’s desire to ‘own’ her and then, barely two scenes later, show her agog at a closet full of designer gowns and lingerie.

“It’s hard to pretend this represents any meaningful step toward a future feminists can be proud of.”

But it’s not all bad news.

Guy Lodge in Variety seemed to enjoy it much more, writing: “For all its structural and psychological deficiencies, it’s hard not to enjoy ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ on its own lusciously limited terms.”

Deadline wasn’t too offended either.

“It might not be in the league of ‘The Godfather Part II’ or ‘Aliens’,nor should it even be spoken of in the same breath, of course, but ‘Fifty Shades Darker’ manages to be a sequel that tops its predecessor simply by not taking itself very seriously and providing what the customers are there for: a good, inventive sex scene every 10 or 15 minutes,” writes Pete Hammond.

It’s out across the UK on Friday.

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