If you follow us on Instagram, we post a picture every time we are about to see a movie - it's a selfie with the two of us and the movie poster. (Side note - can you still call it a selfie when there are two people? Hmmm....) We generally try to express with our faces how excited - or not excited - we are to see the movie. And with Fifty Shades Freed, neither of us were excited. We had not seen any of the two previous movies. I had read the first book, but that was it. I was expecting the movie to be bad.
What I found wasn't necessarily bad, just, boring. It's kind of crazy to call a movie with so many sex scenes boring, but that's what it was to me. Maybe it's because I haven't seen the first two movies, but I didn't find myself invested in any of the characters. For much of the movie there just didn't seem to be much of a plot. They go to work, have sex, spend money on fabulous things, go on vacation, have more sex, blah, blah, blah. The most interesting part of the movie to me was just imagining what it would be like to have such an extravagant lifestyle. I definitely spent some time daydreaming about sailing on a yacht, driving an Audi, owning a fabulous mansion just outside of Seattle, vacationing in Aspen and all over Europe, and shopping for dresses that probably cost more than my current car.
The underlying threat of the movie, the antagonist just didn't seem very threatening overall. Even when the absolute climax of the movie occurred it was just so, well, anti-climactic. I was intrigued by the relationship Ana and Christian have developed since I first read about it in the first book. She really holds her own with him, despite his attempts to control and manipulate her. I do find it odd that they didn't discuss having kids before marriage, considering she had to sign a contract before they had sex the first time. Seems like a rather large oversight for a guy who pays attention to details. In the end it seems to be a nice story of two people in love, and transformed by that love.
I can see why people love this trilogy - romance is fun, the sex is far more than you usually see outside of cinemax or straight up porn, and the lifestyle of the rich and famous is certainly something to behold. As for me, I will happily live my life without seeing the first two, and I could have done without this one as well.