Dear John

The pieces don’t quite fit together in Dear John, the latest romantic movie based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks (who also wrote The Notebook). Channing Tatum plays John, an Army soldier on leave who is living with his troubled dad (Richard Jenkins). He meets and falls in love with Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), which results in two really good-looking people onscreen with little to do. Tatum is a little more tolerable than usual, while the normally reliable Seyfried seems out of place as the saintly Savannah. The movie is designed to jerk tears out of you, but this ain’t The Notebook. In the end, Dear John doesn’t come together, and only succeeds at looking pretty. It was directed by Lasse Hallström, who has been in a major slump since 2000’s Chocolat. The man knows how where to put the camera and stage a shot, but he’s consistently blowing it with the content.