Dear John

September 25, 2010 - Allentown's own Amanda Seyfried falls in love and gets married - but not to the same guy - in this 2010 movie based on a book by Nicholas Sparks. Channing Tatum co-stars along with Henry Thomas.

Tatum plays John Tyree, a Special Forces soldier who goes home to Charleston on leave in the spring of 2001. He meets Savannah, a do-gooder college student from a well-to-do family. They fall in love, but he has to go back to duty and she has to go back to school. They promise to write lots of letters over the next year while John finishes his tour of duty.

But, before the year is up, 9/11 happens and John re-enlists. Savannah is none too happy, but she keeps writing to John until she doesn't. Eventually, he receives the Dear John letter he's been dreading. That could have been the end of things but, this being a Nicholas Sparks story, it isn't. Death helps bring these lovers back together.

Overall review: ** (and that's being generous) The best word I can use to describe this movie is boring. I watched it at home and paused it in the middle to go make the bed. This movie fails miserably to repeat the passion that permeates The Notebook, another movie based on a book by Sparks. Here, each actor seems able to muster only one facial expression, and the songs in the soundtrack all seem to strike a singular tone. Some emotion – any emotion, for that matter – would have been welcome, but it's just not here.