Grade (F)

With subject matter aimed for adults and jokes designed for children, it’t tough to find a target audience for this painfully stupid film. 

“FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK” is a spoof inspired by the film that was inspired by the novel ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ written E.L. James. Usually this is where I like to include a synopsis of what the story-line is about, and it is films such as these that often make this part of the review process the most difficult. Trying to give a synopsis to a film that has no real story is not often easy.

Essentially in this one you have a relatively reserved college student named Hannah played by Kali Hawk, who meets a successful business man named Christian played by Marlon Wayans. From there they loosely copy the plot of the “Fifty Shades of Grey” film with a barrage of dumb, mind-numbing jokes and scenarios.

Before diving into this review I will note that I am not a huge fan of the slapstick genre of comedy although there have been some I love. “The Naked Gun”, “Hot Shots!” and many Chevy Chase films have all been childhood favorites, but more often than not I find sitting through the newer wave of slapstick comedies relatively hard. It is without a doubt a hit or miss sub-genre and this film was a clear, miss. In my opinion it is not an easy venture to see this movie in theaters because with the amount of alcohol one would need in their system to enjoy it, an Uber ride home would be a certainty – and the price for the booze, tickets and a ride home are not worth the experience this film will give you. 

The comedy is not framed up very well at all and shows no real ambition to do anything more than shock the audience with sexual-themed humor that tries to out-do itself with each passing scene. I love the Wayans and as a family of skilled comedians they have provided me with countless hours of laughs dating back to when I was a kid. I think Marlon Wayans could have a much more legitimate comedic weight in the business if he took himself seriously. He can be hilarious, but it is hard to see with these parodies he continues to do. The forced humor and lazy comedic attempts mask his true skill and he (in my opinion) needs to leave the slapstick behind and create some original content.

The humor is this movie doesn’t land nearly enough to make it any sort of fun to sit through. There is no real story wrapped around it to even add the slightest bit of substance to the jokes and in the end they fail to land with much laughter. The over-the-top scope of the comedy comes across as extremely forced and shows no real creativity or charisma. Thus with no story to fill in the gaps this one ends up feeling like one excruciatingly long skit that never ends.

In the end some may find some enjoyment in “Fifty Shades of Black” but I however did not. There were many other films out there to provide some crude laughs but this is not one of them and isn’t worth the time. Simply driving to the cinema, buying a ticket and sitting through this film will easily seem like much more effort than what was taken into writing this thing.

– Starring –

Marlon Wayans, Kali Hawk, Fred Willard, Mike Epps, Affion Crockett, Jane Seymour, Florence Henderson, Andrew Bachelor

– Directed By –

Michael Tiddes

Time: 92 min

MPAA Rating: R (For strong crude sexual content including some graphic nudity, and for language throughout)