Fifty Shades Darker edges closer to parody than scintillation

Dakota Johnson and Jaime Dornan in Fifty Shades Darker. Image courtesy Universal Pictures.

Sometimes deciphering the difference between parody and sincerity is a fool's errand. A movie like Fifty Shades Darker is almost impossible to evaluate for this reason; using simple degrees of good and bad is difficult if viewers don’t know if the movie brilliantly incompetent or incompetently brilliant. What parts of this movie were intended by the filmmakers to be humorous because they're bad, and what parts of this movie try to be good but are still awful anyway? Are the filmmakers perpetually in on the joke of what they're doing or has the joke entered orbit above their heads?

I debated those questions with a friend who came to the screening with me, and I am not completely sure one way or the other, although I do have my suspicions based in part on the series history. The first film of the series, Fifty Shades of Grey, is a sincerely awful film carried modestly by Dakota Johnson's performance as the quiet heroine/Bella Swan ripoff Anastasia Steele. Fifty Shades Darker has many of the same problems of its predecessor, particularly sloppy dialog, a dreadful lead performance by Jamie Dornan and a childish view of the sexual content it showcases. Fifty Shades Darker also sports a less than stellar turn by Johnson, who doesn't appear to care all that much about her character or anything else around her.

It shares the same problems, but not necessarily in the same way as Fifty Shades of Grey. There is no plot beyond Christian and Ana reconnecting after parting ways in the first film: Everything else involves sex, visiting Christian's family (including Marcia Gay Harden and Rita Ora), more sex, unwanted sexual advances by Ana's boringly handsome boss Jack (Eric Johnson), additional awkward sex, some inane arguments resolved far too quickly, even more sex, some drama with a stilted ex, another round of sex, visits from Ana's old friends, and fireworks that symbolize sex. Structuring a cohesive, interesting narrative around that is close to impossible, and dragging that all out for nearly two hours is a cinematic crime. And even the parts in which there is an iota of narrative cohesion are hindered by an overarching lack of logic and, again, the dialog. That last point is one of the oddest parts of Fifty Shades Darker, with conversations starting but either  never coming to a satisfactory ending or getting returned to several scenes later without context as to why, for example, Ana would be upset with Christian but never bring up that point during breakfast. It is almost inconceivably sloppy, so close to being purely idiotic by the filmmakers it could, perhaps, be intentional.

And now we're back to the question of whether this is meant to be serious at all or a joke at the expense of Fifty Shades of Grey. Academy Award winners Harden and Kim Basinger each vamp up their fleeting moments on screen, offering one of the rare times in cinema one Oscar winner will slap the heck out of another in a beautifully campy moment. There is so much camp to be found in Fifty Shades Darker, from the Harden/Basinger slap to Jack's melodramatic scene at the end to some awkward images of extras clearly aware of the mischief Ana and Christian are getting into right behind them. It's tough to call this film properly over the top; doing so would indicate there is some max capacity that clearly does not exist in Fifty Shades Darker. Gauging whether or not those little inklings are done with a wink and a nod or a straight face remains tricky to parse out.

In thinking about it, I tend to edge closer to it being somewhat knowing but largely bad in an unintentional way. Those script issues are too severe to be intentional – even parodies have a grasp on basic narrative concepts – and the lack of effort Johnson and Dornan put in their performances feels more intentionally lazy than purposefully terrible. It is bad enough though to earn a large number of guffaws from audience members over how ludicrous the movie is in its entirety and from one scene to the next. Fifty Shades Darker isn't worth shelling out $12 for a ticket, but it would be great to watch with some friends to laugh at the poorly constructed and salaciously milquetoast saga of Christian and Ana.

Review: Two out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 118 minutes

Genre: Drama

Ask Away

Target audience: Anyone who read the books or liked the first movie.

Take the whole family?: I'm going to say no for this one.

Theater or Netflix?: Stream it with some wine and friends.

What else is off about this film?: One thing that does bug me is the way the movie treats Anastasia. After leaving Christian, she is depicted at first as a woman who has her priorities in order and knows what she wants out of her second relationship with Christian. The independence ends in the first act when she starts to cede to Christian's whims and reverting back to who she was in the last film, which is rather frustrating.

Watch this instead?: Even with how ridiculous this film is, it still falls short of the insane brilliance that is Tommy Wiseau's The Room. Also worth a watch for people looking for enjoyable bad cinema is the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Boy Next Door, which is ridiculous on so many levels.

'Nice Guys' in name only

Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe star in "The Nice Guys." Image courtesy Warner Bros.

The cruelest part of “The Nice Guys” is, after almost two hours of blood, sex and death, all of the chaos on screen never actually means anything. It's director/co-writer Shane Black's greatest joke in a film loaded with great gallows humor and pain, that the borderline heroics of two schlubs in well over their heads results in no change to the world around them. Their success leads directly to failure and the loss of several lives of varying levels of innocence along the way.

It's a fitting coda to a story based in 1970s Los Angeles yet rooted in detective stories like “The Big Sleep,” in which the plot is as logical as an 8 year old's Hot Wheels track. Nothing is quite as it seems from the get go, starting with the chosen career paths of bruiser Jackson Healy (a very bulky Russell Crowe) and private eye Holland March (Ryan Gosling). The former, who proclaims himself to be something of a vagabond searching for meaning in life, has the fists of a fighter but the nose of a gumshoe, while the latter is an alcoholic loser whose source of income entails taking money from elderly women for easily solvable cases. What kind of shenanigans can ensue when these two wacky characters meet for the first time? Technically the first encounter entails a broken arm granted to Gosling's Holland by Crowe's Healy, but the second meeting serves as the start of a very dangerous business relationship complete with goons (Keith David, Matt Bomer and Beau Knapp), a steely government official (Kim Basinger) and her assistant (Yaya DaCosta), and a mysterious girl named Amelia (Margaret Qualley) at the center of all the mayhem.

It's a very old school approach to a film that very much lives in its setting, coupling the grittiness of the streets with the rise of porn as a legitimate force in the entertainment industry and the slowly but surely declining Detroit automakers. The combination results in a pitch perfect milieu for a good detective film, with the dirt and flash representing the conflict between the lifestyles lived by the investigators and the people they're involved with. “The Nice Guys” doesn't view those as mirror images; instead, they're effectively depicted as forces drawing money in theoretically sinful fashions. In Black's view, it's the porn industry that's noble, or at least the career with the potential to change the world, sharing the spirit for betterment possessed by the film’s twenty somethings. It's that sense of trying to do something that leads Holland and Jackson to enter themselves into the arrangement in the first place. Crowe's Jackson aspires to recapture the feeling he had when he broke up a robbery a few months prior; Gosling's Holland wants some semblance of happiness and to show his daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) he is at least moderately competent at his job.

But good intentions can lead to hellish places, especially with characters like these two who lack the qualifications to make their dreams come true. Jackson's moment in the sun is tainted, unwittingly to him, by an epic bout of vengeance he wrought, whilst Holland is too drunk and too much of a loser to follow his ambitions on his own accord. They might be the titular nice guys, but the title itself is something of a joke too; a label like “nice guy” means very little when its ascribed to people like Holland and Jackson. That's why the heart and soul of “The Nice Guys” belongs to Rice's Holly, who serves as the Penny to the Holland/Jackson Inspector Gadget. She's often the smartest person in the room, a very courageous character who fights with her wits and with a little luck on her side. Neither Jackson nor Holland could fulfill their spiritual quests without her presence; they advance somewhat as people because she's around to take care of them. The concept is a little reductive considering how often such roles are filled by women, yet it is effective in large part because of Rice's performance.

Then again, none of this is shown to matter at the end. Whatever personal improvements the eponymous nice guys make is curbed by a world actively acting against their best intentions. It's a cosmic joke, darker than the rest of the black comedy Black puts on display in the movie. Yet it is necessary though to serve as an exclamation mark for Black's ultimate point with “The Nice Guys”; one's advancement in life is never enough to change the world.

Review: Four out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 116 minutes

Genre: Action Comedy

Ask Away

Target audience: Audiences down for some retro action and watching a burly Russell Crowe punch people.

Take the whole family?: It has the right mixture of violence, nudity and inappropriate language to deserve the “R” rating.

Theater or Netflix?: It's good enough to merit an excursion, but not vital to see on a big screen.

Do Crowe and Ryan Gosling work as comedic actors?: For two guys without extensive backgrounds in comedic acting, they do pretty well for themselves. Crowe works within his limitations for the most part – effectively punching and acting a little slow and very gruff – but Gosling exhibits a penchant for pulling off a pretty good pratfall.

Watch this as well?: Shane Black dipped into a similar detective story/blend of dark humor with his directorial debut “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.” Along with Black's material are two films by acclaimed writer/director Martin McDonagh that are dark, violent and very often hilarious: “In Bruges” and “Seven Psychopaths.”