Fifty Shades Freed

It plays better than it reviews — the watch lands harder than the write-ups suggest.

• “Finally, the Fifty Shades phenomenon has yielded a disarming comedy that makes this ridiculous material fun to watch.”

  Manuela Lazic, IndieWire · 75

• “Fifty Shades Freed has something extra going for it, in that it depicts something that movies and pop songs and pop culture in general tend to avoid, which is the romance of familiarity.”

  Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle · 75

• “Johnson has a sense of Anastasia not just as part of a pristinely arranged tableau but also as a sensualist, with all the attendant nerve endings and complex emotions that that implies. Johnson is fearless about stripping bare, but her bold flirtiness is inextricable from her dignity: the sauciness of her mother Melanie Griffith and the marble-cool poise of her grandmother, Hitchcock blonde Tippi Hedren, merge in her.”

  Stephanie Zacharek, Time · 70

• “There is something special about seeing a bawdy spectacle of feigned sex and quivering emotion test the boundaries of Hollywood’s rigid traditionalism, and their goofy thrall over audiences make for especially fun experiences in a theater. These movies are derivative, often ridiculous, and, in the case of Fifty Shades Freed, unquestionably hilarious, but they’re also the overheated comfort food I crave.”

  Jeffrey Bloomer, Slate · 70

• “It’s hard to find compliments for Jamie Dornan beyond “very athletic”—but from start to finish, one can’t give Johnson enough credit for making these asinine movies work as well as they do.”

  Jordan Hoffman, Vanity Fair · 69