Fifty Shades Of Black hasn’t been anywhere near as big a hit for co-writer and star Marlon Wayans as Scary Movie was, although it’s arguably in a similar situation as that first breakout hit. Many of us (this reviewer included) felt that last year’s E.L. James adaptation Fifty Shades Of Grey was already hilarious by accident, despite and even because of its self-serious tone. The IMDb summary of this film could as easily apply to the worldwide blockbuster that inspired it – “an inexperienced college student meets a wealthy businessman whose sexual practices put a strain on their relationship.” Names have been changed to protect the copyrighted (barely – Grey becomes Black, Ana becomes Hannah), but there’s more than enough added meta humour, slapstick and scatological gross-out moments to make sure you won’t confuse the two. But if you’re familiar with Wayans’ style from the first two Scary Movies and their spiritual successors, A Haunted House and its sequel, you won’t be surprised to discover that, however ripe for parody the material may be, Fifty Shades Of Black reminds you of a hyper-long version of those ‘Greatest Open Goal Fails’ videos you get on YouTube. Worse still, when Black indulges in a little torture with Hannah (Kali Hawk), he actually reads aloud from the book 50 Shades Of Grey and comments on how bad the writing is, which isn’t funny and should be redundant in an entire movie about how silly 50 Shades Of Grey is. See also, Affion Crockett’s turn as Black’s brother, who is an impression of The Weeknd in all but name, just so that they can get in a jab at his Oscar-nominated contribution to the Grey soundtrack, Earned It. In fact, a lot of the deviations from the story of the compromised Sam Taylor-Johnson adaptation scan as bad stand-up rather than dialogue, over-stuffed with instantly dated references to Donald Trump, Bill Cosby and Kim Kardashian. At one point, there’s a Ronda Rousey joke that was out-of-date before the film even landed in US cinemas in January. But when you throw this much shit at the wall, some of it has to stick, and reconfiguring the original narrative helps to hold focus for longer than most of these movies have managed. There’s an extended reference to Whiplash that I’ll admit to laughing at in spite of myself, but even that makes sense in context – after all, it was the other obsessively sadistic and masochistic movie of the last 12 months. Next to an entirely misjudged segue about Magic Mike that takes a long walk for a short punchline (or – spoiler alert – a very short prosthetic dick), it looks masterful. More importantly, if there’s one thing that Wayans excels at as an actor, it’s making himself look silly and that’s what a blunt caricature like Christian Black requires. An average scene, repeated throughout the film, will start with him essaying Jamie Dornan’s stilted delivery before breaking for the joke, apparently unable to resist shouting or gurning. It’s rarely as funny as they think it is, but as an overall lampooning of the humourless cock-a-tron that Dornan didn’t bring to life, it’s mostly effective, especially when the story finally veers from the original. This also observes an outstanding problem with Grey, whose unequal treatment of the two leads was noted by viewers and reviewers at the time of release. Dornan didn’t have to go through the same full frontal exposure as Dakota Johnson did, and Wayans et al do set out to rectify that, rather than just point it out. Wayans is in the cross-hairs, while Hawk steals the spotlight. There’s still not a whole lot of risk in taking easy shots at low hanging fruit, but given how the film develops from endless riffs on Hannah’s looks and hygiene early on to continually showing up Black and ultimately correcting the flaccid cliffhanger ending of Grey, it proves to have more satirical bite, and even something of a plot arc, than the rest of the film would lead you to expect. Coming 12 months after the stilted original, Fifty Shades Of Black isn’t wholly redundant, but it is yet another scattershot parody movie, which offers few pleasures and misses far more often than it hits. Wayans tweeted after the film’s opening weekend in America that this is his last parody movie, and while it’s hardly a redemptive effort on which to end a less than illustrious passage of cinematic history, the last ten minutes or so ensure that he finishes strong. Fifty Shades Of Black is in UK cinemas now.
