Jamie Dornan and Dakota Johnson are back as Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele in the final instalment of the Fifty Shades Of Grey franchise. Erotica Author and Kink Enthusiast, Etta Stark returns for a third helping of disappointment.

The problem with adapting a book for the big screen is that you are always going to have to leave some stuff out. Take E L James’ final instalment in the Fifty Shades trilogy Fifty Shades Freed. The book is 60% BDSM-y sex, 35% Christian Grey acting like a knobhead and about 5% some poorly thought out plot involving a Bad Man, foiled kidnap attempts, arson and stuff.

E L James really shouldn’t try to write plot. She’s terrible at it. However, she can put together a sex scene reasonably well (or if not well, then at least copiously and frequently) so it doesn’t matter. Nobody is reading these books for the sub-par thriller plotline. One imagines that Fifty Shades readers are looking to get their thrills in another way.

Or at least that’s what I think. Director of Fifty Shades Freed, James Foley clearly disagrees, given that he’s taken the directorial decision to jettison most of the kinky sex and substantially tone down Christian’s knobheadedness. “What I really need to focus on here is the car chases and murder attempts,” he obviously told himself. “That’s what the public wants. This isn’t kinky soft-core pornography!”

And that’s the first of many problems with this film. It isn’t soft-core porn. It should have been but it isn’t. I have absolutely no idea what sort of film Foley thought he was making here.

It isn’t even a film about a woman saving a fucked-up damaged lover with the emotional maturity of a toddler through the power of love and blind acceptance. Because although Grey is a bit of a dick in this film, he is nowhere as bad as the book version who seems to be on a one-man mission to tick every box on the Controlling, Emotionally Abusive, Narcissistic Cuntweasel bingo card.

Ana tolerates it all because her man is so complicated and has issues and she luuuurves him. Apparently love means putting up with furious outbursts, creepy stalking and childish sulking before you kiss and make up and your husband shoves some sex toys up your bottom.

Christian proposed to Ana at the end of the last film, Fifty Shades Darker. This one kicks off with their nuptials and a brace of wedding vows so cheesy, it’s a wonder that neither character broke off part way through and said “What the fuck are we talking about. Hold up, everyone, I’ve just realised I sound like a bit of a twat.” We are treated to a Happy Honeymoon Montage where Ana giggles the same winsome giggle in a number of European tourist hotspots.

After that, well a bunch of stuff happens for an hour and a half. Boobs! Handcuffs! Sex! Peril! Peril Averted! Christian being a dick! More sex! More peril! Car Chase! Post car chase sex in a parking lot! Even though stopping for a shag in a parking lot seems like a poor decision when someone’s chasing you. Not now, you two. Put it away.

All the thriller-y bits are nonsensical. The aims of the Bad Guys during the car chase are rather unclear. Later on, Ana makes a stupendously stupid decision not to involve the security staff whose actual job it is to keep her safe just because the Bad Guy told her not to tell anyone. Your personal security team could have pretended that you hadn’t told them. I’m sure they’ve done this sort of thing before. And everybody bloody turned up anyway so it made not the blindest bit of difference other than compromising two people’s personal safety.

I’m worried I might have earlier made this film sound slightly appealing by saying stuff like ‘Boobs!’ and ‘Sex!’ but honestly, it’s not anything like as much fun as it might have been. For a start, there’s no spanking at all in this film. I may have moaned (not in a good way) about the four paltry smacks on Ana’s bottom in the last film but that was a full-on spanking marathon compared to what’s on offer here. So the film didn’t even have that to redeem it. Even Rita Ora failed to win me over this time.

Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan are fine. And by fine, I mean they’re there. Being involved with the Fifty Shades franchise can’t be doing either of their professional reputations much good. So it’s nice that they stuck with it to the end. Well done both of them for bothering to turn up for work. I hope Johnson and Dornan appreciate how very low I am setting the bar here.

At the end of the film we are treated to a “Fifty Shades Films: The Best Bits” montage as Ana fondly looks back over the time she’s spent with Christian. This was an opportunity for us, the viewer to also fondly remember what we’ve all been through together on our special journey through three mediocre pointless films. So, yeah, thanks for the reminder that I could have been doing something so much better with my time, Foley.

But at least we know it’s all over now. (Unless anyone decides to make films of the Christian-focused retellings of the Fifty Shades stories. I can’t imagine why anybody would but then I have no idea why E L James wrote them in the first place so what do I know?)

It’s the end of an era. Christian and Ana are all married and be-babied and living happily ever after. James Dornan can hang up his flogger. Dakota Johnson can put her knickers back on and stop looking so damn winsome about everything.

The obvious thing to do here would be to make the comparison between the end of the Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy and the end of Mostly Film. But we know that would be a stupid comparison to make.

Fifty Shades Freed was dull and disappointing. Mostly Film is brilliant, often hilarious, frequently thought-provoking and, unlike the Fifty Shades films, made the world a slightly more awesome place. I feel privileged to have made some small contribution to this website over the years. I’ll miss it.

And of course it goes without saying that Mostly Film is hell of a lot sexier than Christian Grey could ever hope to be.

Nicer arse too.