Alright ladies. This review is for you. We’re sure that many of you have a copy (copies?) of the infamous Fifty Shades of Grey and its sequels. (Come on, admit it! Don’t be shy 😉 ) But we’re quite sure most of our readers in Malaysia haven’t seen the film. (Finas banned the movie for obvious reasons. Boo!) We had to go all the way to Singapore to watch the movie. Again, we’re sure many of you readers are secretly living vicariously through the characters Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele and would like to know how the film fares to the book. (You naughty people!)

For the sake of being balanced, we’re dividing this review into 2 sections: One from CheeseBoy, and the other from Belacan Girl. Here goes…

CheeseBoy Review:

*BOOBS*

What else can I say? This is just porn for the ladies! But tastefully done and not gross like your common Internet accessible porn. I gotta admit other than the nudity and sex scenes (actually you don’t see much, it’s all simulated sex), Dakota Johnson does a pretty good job as the vulnerable Anastasia Steele. Jamie Dornan is quite stiff (pun intended) as the brooding Christian Grey. Perhaps by sheer limitation from the screenplay, the character development seems a bit rushed. Both seemed to be ‘forced’ into their relationship, and Grey’s character could use some background set-up. Yes, he’s a 27 year old billionaire. How exactly did he become that? Did he create Facebook or something? There was some weak explanation about him having some African projects that benefited Mankind, but was only superficial. Characters surrounding the 2 main antagonists seemed shallow and doesn’t do much to prop up the storyline. (Ana’s roommate, Christian’s mother and siblings for example)

One of the things I liked though was the film’s soundtrack. There’s some cool music from The Weeknd ‘Earned It’, and Ellie Goulding’s  ‘Love Me Like You Do’. Have a listen below:

But then again who cares about character development or the music? We know what you really wanted to see. 😉

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Belacan Girl Review:

Hmm, I honestly don’t really know how to begin writing about this. Oh well, I was shy enough to answer my Abah when he asked me “What movie did you watch that you have to travel all the way to Singapore?” (Btw, my parents were annoyed that I forgot to inform them that we were going to Singapore).

We were supposed to catch the movie during the opening weekend, but we had to put the plan on hold as my health condition didn’t permit. So, we waited until I was feeling a bit better a few weeks later. Despite all the bad reviews, we still proceed with our plan (thanks to CheeseBoy who was crazy enough to entertain his wife’s crazy idea!) We are 2 naturally curious people!

Anyways, in summary, I would say the movie is not great, but it is definitely watchable. I think Dakota Johnson was perfectly cast for the role. She is not what we typically call beautiful, but there is something special about her and for this she fits into the Anastasia Steel role pretty well. She really brought the character to life. I reckon she will have great potential and good career is ahead of her! (Well, she’s only third generation of Hollywood royalty!)

Christian (played by Jamie Dornan), on the other hand, is a bit disappointing. I find him expressionless and yeah he did frown a lot. CheeseBoy insisted that his character is like that, hence the expressionless state in almost all scenes. I have never watched any Jamie Dornan’s movie previously, so I can’t really compare his acting. But I guess, not having any preference on who is going to play the lead roles allowed me not to be biased.

There was a point of this movie where CheeseBoy and I were like ‘’Okay, where is this movie heading to?” I read the book peeps and I know where the movie is heading to, but despite of the countless of “love scenes” I was like “Okay, when is this movie going to end?!”

I wish for better character development, and for them to develop other characters surrounding Anastasia and Christian. There was so much hype about Rita Ora starring in Fifty Shades movie but she only appeared for like 2 seconds!

All in all, I wouldn’t consider our trip to Singapore was a total waste. We had a great time there. Oh special note here, thank you to Singapore for not censoring the movie at all! 😛