Fifty Shades of Black

Director Michael Tiddes and writers Rick Alvarez and Marlon Wayans do a send-up of Fifty Shades of Grey, with Wayans himself starring as the mysterious tycoon into seduction and kinky sex and Kali Hawk as the timid young virgin who falls under his spell. Heaven knows E.L. James’ novel and the movie made from it are both fair game for parody, but this one uses up all its cleverness on the title and has already blown its handful of decent gags in the trailer—where they’re actually much funnier because they’re not surrounded by all the cover-your-mouth-and-snigger raunchiness that is Wayans’ and Tiddes’ main stock in trade. In the full movie, laughs are virtually nonexistent—you’ll get more out of YouTube’s Honest Trailers treatment of Fifty Shades of Grey, and that’s only five-and-a-half minutes long. J.L.