Dear John

Tatum and Seyfried manage to conjure a comfortable chemistry, but their characters are simply too good to seem real. Seyfried's Savannah is selfless to a fault, and her willingness to help others even at the expense of her own happiness is over the top. Anyone familiar with Sparks' novels (or the many movies based on them) knows that there are always several obstacles to keep his star-crossed lovers apart, and Dear John is no exception; but the "twist" here is so far-fetched that it borders on infuriating.

Still, those looking for a weepy love story may forgive that Dear John stops making sense halfway through. Director Lasse Hallstrom knows how to manipulate audiences into crying for his characters, and there's plenty of Kleenex-worthy material toward the movie's end. One subplot that's genuinely affecting is John's relationship with his autistic father (Richard Jenkins); one of the movie's most touching scenes is when John reads his hospitalized father a letter. While Dear John ranks nowhere near the scorching romance that Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams created in The Notebook, it's slightly better than several other bland films based on Sparks' books.