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Fifty Shades Darker is fifty times more boring than the original

FIFTY SHADES DARKER (James Foley). 118 minutes. Opens Friday (February 10). See listing. Rating: N


Early on in Fifty Shades Darker, Anastasia Steele (Dakota Johnson) rambles on about Jane Austen and Emily Brontë before coming to terms with the idea that her relationship with Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan) is really just about “kinky fuckery.”

That’s a warning to the audience.

As with its predecessor, Fifty Shades Of Grey, you are not here to lament patriarchal hypocrisy or relish women who swim against the tide. You’re not here to swoon over a forbidden romance: the relationship between Anastasia and Christian has few signs of human connection. You’re not even here for the plot – the most that happens is the introduction of some new characters.

You’re here for the anal beads, nipple clamps and a collapsible baton with straps on either end.

Even those sadomasochistic scenes are disappointing. Christian, pouting over messing things up with his whip (or was it a paddle?) in the last outing, obsesses over treating Anastasia right. His toys only go so far as amusement – the baton is used for acrobatic display. The danger is stripped away to the point that Anastasia has to keep reminding Christian that at any moment he can slip back into his dominant, punishing ways – just to justify the “Darker” in the title.

She’s the one who keeps tiptoeing toward the red room of pain despite her fear of it, a contradiction that might be fascinating in a movie that had a better script and some psychological depth. Darker only has silky surfaces and touches of self-deprecating humour that serve as a mea culpa from the filmmakers and cast that they have nothing to work with.

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