Fifty Shades Freed Review: 3 Ups & 7 Downs

1. The Tone Is A Complete Mess

By unabashedly introducing full-tilt thriller elements into its narrative, Fifty Shades Freed is the most tonally jarring of the three movies, frequently waylaying the audience with a severe bout of mood whiplash, as the film leaps nonchalantly between meet-cute, supposedly sexy erotic drama, and a stalker thriller.

There's just no finesse to how the film switches gears: a car chase sequence, for instance, is clearly supposed to be serious and intense, but it's scored to a peppy, upbeat pop song that just doesn't fit at all.

The movie has no idea what it really wants to be or how to get there effectively, and it's just baffling to watch, especially as veteran director James Foley is responsible for one of the best films of the 1990s, Glengarry Glen Ross.

Make no mistake, this is a bad bad film, but it's not ALL bad. Here's the little that actually works...