Mission In A Bottle – ‘Dear John’ Review

Posted on March 11, 2010 - 9:01pm by michael The newest Nicholas Sparks adaptation reminds me first and foremost about how bizarre my own taste in movies is. I love gritty action movies and tasteless horror movies and good psychological thrillers and crime dramas, but somewhere in there I also have a deep love of romantic dramas, although this particular interest generally doesn’t reveal itself until I find myself watching a good one. It would require, for example, a unique set of circumstances for me to buy a ticket to a movie like Dear John rather than something else that seems a little more up my alley – like The Crazies, Shutter Island, Alice in Wonderland, Brooklyn’s Finest, The Wolfman, or even Cop Out – but years ago I noticed an ability to tolerate even the sappiest romance movies. Fair warning, though – if you don’t believe in love at first sight, you won’t like this movie. I’m just gonna put that out there. Dear John is, first of all, entirely a romantic drama, so it wastes no time in getting to the point of the central romance.  Channing Tatum plays John Tyree, a soldier in the Army who meets a girl named Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) while on leave in his hometown. Unfortunately, the movie goes wrong almost immediately. Some other guy has a crush on Savannah, but accidentally knocks her bag off of a pier into the ocean. As she laments that her “whole life was in that bag” (really?), the guy runs down the pier to the beach, promising the get it back for her. [caption id="attachment_74156" align="alignleft" width="355" caption="Reminds me of myself in high school, except without all the muscles and rugged good looks."][/caption] But just then, John, who had been kickin’ it shirtless on the pier, staring into the sunset, leaps heroically into the water, swimming to the bottom and retrieving the lost bag. This is a scene for the girls, so I shouldn’t be surprised at how unimpressive it was to me. Savannah is sufficiently impressed, and I guess that’s all that matters. Their growing relationship with each other is convincing enough, but only because of the chemistry between Tatum and Seyfried. The writing might be some of the worst I’ve seen from Mr. Sparks. John comes to the rescue by hopping off a pier. He knows that the moon doesn’t change size no matter where it is in the sky. He can build a campfire. Amazing! "That's so...primal," Savannah says. [caption id="attachment_74157" align="alignright" width="386" caption="John and Savannah spend a lot of time staring at each other in this movie."][/caption] I guess I just feel like someone with his background should have some more impressive skills than these. I was a counselor at a summer camp in 2005 where I spent a summer with a lot of 11 and 12-year-old kids jumping off of higher cliffs and teaching them how to build fires and that the moon doesn’t actually get bigger as it goes down, it just looks bigger as it gets closer to the horizon. But I digress. The conflicts are interesting enough, I suppose. John is on leave from the military and will soon be returning to Iraq. His father is lonely and seems to be struggling with gradually increasing mental illness. Savannah, meanwhile, is a conservative college student who is spending her vacation working on a home for Habitat For Humanity. The question is whether or not the two weeks during which they met and fell in “love” will be enough to overcome the yearlong separation after John is sent back to Iraq, but the 9/11 attacks suddenly change everything when John decides to re-enlist. So Tatum and Seyfriend have to present likable characters, which they do for the most part, but the problem with the movie is that it tries to create the dramatic tension by putting John in an impossible situation but fails completely. I’m sorry, but choosing between a two week crush and serving his country and his fellow soldiers in the immediate aftermath of the worst terrorist attack in American history just isn’t it. And Savannah’s temper tantrum when she finds out that he plans to extend his service does nothing but make her character irritating. [caption id="attachment_74159" align="alignright" width="386" caption="They also spend a lot of time staring at letters..."][/caption] “Don’t ever tell me I don’t understand!” she blurts. What else could he possibly say? But don’t get me wrong, I really didn’t hate the movie. It’s not bad, it’s just not great, and overall it just feels like there wasn’t much effort put into the setup or the payoff or much of anything else. The leads put in good performances, as does an abused Richard Jenkins, who is saddled with a childishly awkward character as John’s father, but the predictability factor is through the roof. If you find yourself surprised, for example, when Savannah writes John a “Dear John” letter, for example, there’s a good chance this is the first movie you’ve ever seen, in which case I hope you enjoyed it.  But if it’s not the first movie you’ve ever seen, then I can pretty much guarantee you’ve seen something better. The Bean Meter [caption id="attachment_74162" align="aligncenter" width="634" caption="See?"][/caption]