Fifty Shades Freed (2018) - Review

"Freed" is an apt title for the final installment in the Fifty Shades trilogy. After watching the finale, I feel freed from this franchise .

Perhaps I am being a bit hard on the series. While I found the first film to be banal smut, I actually enjoyed the middle chapter. The introduction of the villain Jack Hyde in Darker helped drive the narrative forward in an engaging way, something Fifty Shades of Grey lacked. Freed however, undoes the progress made by the sequel and regresses into the original's territory.

In Fifty Shades Freed, Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey get married, brought together by their love of bondage sex and how emotionally freeing they find it. All is not well for the happy couple though, as Anastasia's former boss Jack Hyde is out for revenge after the loss of his job at Grey's hands in the previous film.

This set-up had me intrigued coming out of last year's flick, and I was encouraged by the post-credits trailer in Fifty Shades Darker. Unfortunately, the highlight of Darker takes a back seat to horrible acting by our two leads. Hyde is fun while on screen, but his screen time totals to about all of 6 minutes. Sure; his presence is felt throughout the feature, but in more of an annoying, speed bump kind of way rather than a true antagonist. Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson cannot carry the film as their roles require, with each turning in what may be their worst performances of the three.

Further frustrating me, the addition of a subplot involving Grey's brother goes absolutely no where. If the time spent on that had been repurposed for Eric Johnson's character, that could have gone a long way to keeping the film moving forward. Hyde screamed for a scene away from the main characters where we could see his inner workings, but instead we get a string of poorly acted dialogue and gratuitous sex that drag the film along at a snail's pace.

The biggest problem of this film is that the story serves the sex scenes. Whereas in Fifty Shades Darker, the sex scenes served the story, feeling natural and satisfying (pardon the pun) to watch, in this film the sex scenes feel like they were crafted first, and the script was written around them.

An interesting theme that runs throughout the Fifty Shades series is the idea of sex as a tool. In Fifty Shades of Grey, sex was used to empower Anastasia. In Fifty Shades Darker, sex was used to liberate Christian. In this film, sex is used as a revenge tool, with Grey toying with Anastasia for disobeying him. Much like Hyde's use, this theme is not touched upon near enough to redeem the film. Interesting, but overlooked by the director and screenwriter.

The one good feature of Freed is the music. Danny Elfman's score is dark and mysterious, yet flirtatious, while the original soundtrack continues the series tradition of bringing some A1 hits. I especially liked the callback to Ellie Goulding's "Love Me Like You Do" from the first film.

As much as I love watching two actors commit various acts of bondage and nipple sucking, I am glad this series is over. Darker gave me hope, but Freed falls into the same tropes of the original, delivering an unsatisfying climax (again, pardon the pun). SKIP IT.