"Once" twice: does lightning strike again?

Rating: 5/10 (15 July 2014)

"Begin Again" (2013 release; 100 min.) brings the story of Greta (played by Keira Knightley) and Dan (played by Marc Ruffalo). As the movie opens, we find Greta reluctantly going on stage in a small bar venue to play a song, urged on by a friend. By complete coincidence Dan, a veteran of the music business, is in the audience, and loves what he's hearing. We later learn the background of how these two characters ended up in that very place, as things have not been going as planned (and I'm being mild). Dan tells her he wants to record an album with/for her. Along the way we get to know the side characters (Dan's wife and 14 yr. old daughter--both estranged from Dan), and Dave (played by Maroon 5's Adam Levine), Greta's boyfriend who has just hit the big time. To tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.
Couple of comments: as a general matter and contrary to apparently many other reviewers, I did not "fall" for this movie like I did for "Once", writer-director John Carney's previous tale of romance and music. In fact, when it comes down to it, this movie is nothing more that a re-imagined "Once", set in a different city and with different leads, but in the end it is nothing more than a variation of what we've already seen. Lightning does not strike again: as sincere and moving and impossible Once was, as contrived and unoriginal and self-evident Begin Again is. There are still a couple of great scenes in the movie, reason I'm giving it 5 stars out of 10, and which I cannot describe in more details so as not to give away anything.
And then just when you've think you've seen it all, comes the ending of the movie. Wow, just wow. The irony of it all. (For more details, please see my comments in the movie's discussion threat here on IMDb, under "The Ending (spoilers obviously)".