James, she might have been less disappointed in life — though in her first film outing, 2. Fifty Shades of Grey,” director Sam Taylor- Johnson and screenwriter Kelly Marcel also aspired to a higher standard. Smartly gutting James’s viscous purple prose for something more curt and witty, it was one of the great pleasant surprises in recent studio moviemaking. Movie Trailers Get Out (2017). So it’s perhaps unfair to knock James Foley’s serviceable, lip- glossed sequel merely for delivering what might have reasonably been expected in the first place: an expensively scented two- hour soapdown, interspersed with some light erotic frisking, all administered very much with the original author’s sticky- fingered touch. Sure to make Grey at the Valentine’s Day box office, “Darker” does almost nothing to fulfil the promise of its title, but it’s still diverting, sleekly styled and just sexy enough to frighten a few frigid horses. With a brusque farewell as the elevator doors clamped shut, ending a long, tortured romantic negotiation on the chilliest of notes, “Fifty Shades of Grey” pulled off what might have been one of the great modern Hollywood endings — if not for the assured knowledge that a sequel was coming down the pike to undo its decisive snap.

The original novel, for all its stylistic ineptitude, likewise works better as a self- contained narrative than as a franchise- starter: Once shy Anastasia (Dakota Johnson), tested to her limits by the brand of possessive S& M wielded by Christian Grey (Jamie Dornan), resolves that she’s better off as her own woman, continuing their romance entails doubling back on a lot of good character work. But there’s money to be made and fans to be serviced, and so “Fifty Shades Darker” is here to — in the words of Coldplay’s “The Scientist,” covered in Corinne Bailey Rae’s dulcet greige tones over the opening credits — take us back to the start. It’s been three weeks since Anastasia and Christian called off their arrangement (“relationship” is too lofty a term for its first iteration), and apparently much soul- searching, troubled sleeping and pensive pacing across marble floors has taken place in the interim.

Directed by James Foley. With Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Eric Johnson, Eloise Mumford. While Christian wrestles with his inner demons, Anastasia must confront the. Director James Foley takes the reins for 'Fifty Shades Darker,' the second film adapting E.L. James' best-selling S&M romance series.

Does she feel likewise, though? Despite the distraction of a dreamy new job as assistant to dreamier publishing house editor Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), she does — with the wan caveat that their reconciliation proceed with “no rules, no punishment and no more secrets.”Needless to say, there wouldn’t be much of a movie left if he honored these stipulations and refitted the Red Room of Pain with some comfy ivory banquettes and a selection of Pottery Barn’s finest throw cushions. For all her earlier skittishness, it takes but one fancy dinner and some selfless cunnilingus for Anastasia to admit that she’s ready to return to the Grey side. It’s not long before he’s authoritatively popping vaginal beads inside her person, whisking her off to masked balls (not his own) and forbidding her to go on work trips with her smarmily dashing new boss because “he wants what’s mine.”If the original film narrowly skated around their relationship’s misogynistic undertow by giving Anastasia a strong, searching, sometimes skeptical point of view, it’s far more difficult here to determine what she wants, or what her prior experience with Christian has made of her. Quite literally requesting to be spanked one minute, then aghast at his aggressively dominant tendencies the next, she essentially retraces her painful arc of discovery from the first film — only with selective flashes of amnesia regarding his cruellest impulses.

Watch Deadline's video review of Fifty Shades Darker, which Pete Hammond says tops its predecessor simply by not taking itself very seriously. In theory, Fifty Shades Darker is great no matter how bad it is. To call it a lousy movie is missing the point: It’s a functional movie, a girls-night-out commando. Fifty Shades Darker may wear leather and chains, but it’s still a retro bore. Fifty Shades Darker: When a wounded Christian Grey tries to entice a cautious Ana Steele back into his life, she demands a new arrangement before.

There’s certainly something to be said here about the chronic compulsive behavior of masochists as well as sadists, but amid its luxurious montages of burrata- smooth flesh, industrial- strength lingerie and bruiseless manhandling, “Fifty Shades Darker” isn’t in the mood to say it. It’s not just on screen, of course, that the new film has lost its predecessor’s feminine perspective, with Taylor- Johnson and Marcel both stepping down to make way for, respectively, accomplished B- movie veteran Foley and screenwriter Niall Leonard — otherwise known as Mr. Leonard permits his wife’s authorial voice to trickle more floridly through to the finished film than Marcel did: All the novels’ talk of inner goddesses is mercifully still kept at bay, but much of the dialogue here is pure Harlequinese, with Anastasia and Christian’s exchanges particularly missing the first film’s pert, playful zing. If Christian’s sister Mia (pop star Rita Ora, given a couple of scenes this time and mouthily seizing them) rightly observes that he’s “the man with everything but a sense of humor,” it would appear that Anastasia has turned under his influence. In Leonard’s defense, he’s faithfully working with (even) lesser material than Marcel was. There’s little shape to “Darker’s” baggy retread of the leads’ push- pull seduction, despite a wealth of narrative corners: the aforementioned tension between Anastasia’s boyfriend and boss, some ominous stalking from one of Christian’s former submissives (Bella Heathcote), friction with the abusive sexual instructor of his youth (a fine, tart and sorely underworked Kim Basinger), not to mention a tossed- in helicopter crash that leaves even fewer visible marks than the lovers’ Red Room antics. For all this activity, Anastasia and Christian simply aren’t given that much to do — a climactic romantic act has be consecutively replayed in three different contexts, just so the characters can stretch their legs a bit.

And yet, for all its structural and psychological deficiencies, it’s hard not to enjoy “Fifty Shades Darker” on its own lusciously limited terms. Rebounding from the joylessly lurid genre fug of 2. Perfect Stranger,” Foley’s return to the big screen shows some of his velvety class as a trash stylist. He doesn’t approach the plentiful sex scenes, in particular, with quite as much crisp ingenuity as Taylor- Johnson did, but with cinematographer John Schwartzman slathering on the satin finish by the bucketful, they more than suffice as coffee- table titillation.

If anything, the film is most seductive outside of either the bedroom or the Red Room, when it succumbs to the sheer lifestyle porn of overly art- directed Venetian parties and platinum Monique Lhuillier gowns. A sweepingly shot yachting sequence may be a shameless rehash of the first film’s vertiginous flying hijinks, but it’s irresistible all the same, scored as it is to the creamy pop perfection of Taylor Swift and Zayn Malik’s “I Don’t Want to Live Forever” — first cut among equals on a savvy background playlist that also includes Halsey, Ora and the ubiquitous Sia. As for the stars, they grin and bear it as best they can, which is to stay they valiantly don’t grin much at all. So wonderful and resourceful in the first film, Johnson isn’t given even the raw material to make an equivalent impression this time round, but maintains a beguilingly responsive, curious screen presence even through Anastasia’s inscrutable shifts in consciousness.

Dornan, sporting an extra coat of stubble and, impossibly, even further evidence of gym hours than before, has even less to work with, but accepts his aesthetic obligations with good grace. We care not a lick for these beautiful people, nor for their future together, as teased in a glistening mini- trailer for next year’s “Fifty Shades Freed” halfway through the closing credits. Yet to find yourself rooting for their union purely because they’re both so damn hot is to realize that “Fifty Shades Darker” has worked its shallow magic on you. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 1. MIN. Production. A Universal Pictures presentation of a Michael De Luca production in association with Perfect World Pictures.

Produced by De Luca, E. L. James, Dana Brunetti, Marcus Viscidi. Crew. Directed by James Foley.

Screenplay, Niall Leonard, adapted from the novel by E. L. Camera (color, widescreen), John Schwartzman. Editor, Richard Francis- Bruce.

James Foley's Fifty Shades Darker, the second big- screen outing adapting E. L. James's best- selling S& M fairy tale, goes rather in the other direction, replacing most of the first installment's talk of master/servant dynamics and contractually delineated sex play with more lovey- dovey hoohah than most self- respecting rom- coms are willing to deliver. Taking the series over from Sam Taylor- Johnson, whose Fifty Shades of Grey earned jeers alongside its $5. Foley has the job of introducing some external threats to the unlikely coupling of Dakota Johnson's Anastasia Steele and Jamie Dornan's Christian Grey.

But he and screenwriter Niall Leonard can hardly milk enough novelty out of these new villains to win back fans who felt burned by the first film. A concluding installment is already en route; expect diminishing returns every Valentine's Day. As the story begins, Anastasia has left Christian after an experience in his sex dungeon that, she felt, showed her the depths of meanness hidden within his S& M practice. But nobody compares to Christian, who has soon begged his way to a second chance and — ah, how the tables turn! This time, when there's spanking to be done, it's at Ana's request — and not because doors have opened in her psyche and she feels a disturbing need to submit, but because, duh, it feels good. Leonard and 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. There was a lot of snickering at that screening, in fact, though some scenes inexplicably slid by without mockery. Where were the guffaws when Ana described cunnilingus as ?

Where were the scornful hoots when Christian, in response to Ana's comment, ? Especially in this Trumpian era, can we not at last openly mock such one- percenter smugness? But of course, the desire to be swept away by Prince Bucksalot is more central to the Fifty Shades brand than any curiosity about non- mainstream sexual gratification. Darker hardly hides this, and gets into trouble when it pretends not to care about Christian Grey's riches. How can the filmmakers keep a straight face when they have Anastasia complaining about Christian's desire to ? Blindfolds and tasteful wrist restraints are just this year's superficial twist on the Cinderella story.

Fifty Shades may take pains not to let Anastasia actually accept anything as gauche as cash for the body she hands over so willingly to her prince, as Julia Roberts did in Pretty Woman. But it's hard to pretend this represents any meaningful step toward a future feminists can be proud of. Production company: Universal Pictures.

Distributor: Universal Cast: Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan, Kim Basinger, Luke Grimes, Eloise Mumford, Max Martini, Eric Johnson, Rita Ora, Victor Rasuk. Director: James Foley.

Screenwriter: Niall Leonard. Producers: Dana Brunetti, Michael De Luca, E. L. James, Marcus Viscidi. Director of photography: John Schwartzman. Production designer: Nelson Coates. Costume designer: Shay Cunliffe.

Editor: Richard Francis- Bruce. Composer: Danny Elfman. Casting directors: Laray Mayfield, Julie Schubert.

Rated R, 1. 17 minutes.