REVIEW: It was a pop culture phenomenon but the final movie in the Fifty Shades saga — starring Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan — is little more than an accidental comedy.

FIFTY SHADES FREED (MA15+)

*

Director James Foley

Starring Dakota Johnson, Jamie Dornan

Verdict Strictly for masochists

BONDAGE, blackmail, babies, bubble baths ... and a home invasion.

The first few months of married life are extraordinarily eventful for Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele.

And that’s after the broodingly handsome billionaire has carried his new wife over the threshold of his private jet for a dream honeymoon in Europe.

As well as wrestling with ordinary, everyday dilemmas such as whether or not Anastasia should keep her own name at work (Christian has rather firm opinions on the matter) and whether Anastasia should go topless on the beach (Christian is unequivocal on this point), the newlywed couple must deal with the clear and present danger of a vengeful character from their past.

And Jack Hyde (Eric Johnson), Ana’s former boss and stalker, turns out to be extremely resourceful.

It’s as if E.L. James was so conscious of her limitations as a writer, she threw the entire plot book at the third and final instalment of her best-selling erotic romance in the hope audiences wouldn’t notice.

In between the kidnap attempts and car chase sequences, the overheated melodrama pauses frequently for sex — blindfolded, in handcuffs, with ice cream.

Almost all of it comes across as fake.

Striking the one true note in this prurient potboiler is lead actor Dakota Johnson who embraces her thankless role with such conviction that she emerges from the project with her dignity intact.

This is no small feat for a woman so thoroughly objectified on screen.

As Anastasia, Johnson must express constant surprise without coming across as awkward or gauche, she must appear childlike while also convincing us that she is emotionally mature, nail subservience without compromising her character’s free spirit. And all of this in a constant state of arousal.

Jamie Dornan doesn’t fare nearly so well. Christian is jealous, needy, controlling. The only thing he has going for him is his wealth and good looks.

There might have been a temptation to remind our daughters to run a mile from such a character in real life — had Dornan’s rendition of Paul McCartney’s Maybe I’m Amazed not already taken care of that

Many of the women at the screening I attended responded to Fifty Shades Freed as if it were a comedy. Perhaps they are on the right track.

Is the final instalment in the franchise better or worse than its predecessors? The bar has been set so low, that question is as irrelevant as the pop culture phenomenon itself.

Fifty Shades Freed is now screening.