Good first half can't make up for its weaker second half.

Rating: 5/10 (4 March 2012)

No, I don't too often watch these sort of romantic and dramatic movies but it's not like I hate the genre. It's just so, when you have seen one of these movies, you have basically seen them all already. The only way a romantic movie can still satisfy me is if it's doing something new and original, or truly something realistic and heartfelt. This movie does none of those things really though unfortunately.
But to be honest; I was quite liking the movie at first. When everything was still good and all between its two main characters, the movie was a quite maintaining and sweet little one, that got beautifully shot by Swedish director Lasse Hallström. However with these sort of movies you already know that things can't go well for very long. There is always a conflict, that sooner or later comes in between of the love, of its two main characters.
And in this movie it's a whole bunch of different stuff that comes in between of its main characters. War, dreams, death, it's all a part of this movie, that forces the two lovers apart from each other. And I could had dealt all well with this, if it got brought better to the screen.
It's not only too much and not really realistic and believable enough, it also all got really cramped in, in its second half. Things happen way too soon after each other, as if the movie was constantly in an hurry. Also none of this ever worked out too well because of that, which makes the movie mostly emotionally an ineffective one.
Still I can see this movie having some value to it as a typical chick-flick. And there is nothing wrong with that, it just clearly isn't really my cup of tea though.
Because there is so much drama in this movie, it also all felt far too forced. I had a real hard time getting into the second half of the movie because of this, while the first half of the movie was perfectly told, in a slow and beautiful way. I bought into the love between its two main characters, played by Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried. In the second half this feeling was completely gone and the two of them really didn't seem to fit together at all.
You could also blame the casting because of this. Now, I'm not necessarily complaining about Channing Tatum's acting skills in this movie but he still is very miscast. This guy just isn't made to play the lead role, in a romantic movie. He totally doesn't has the charisma for that. He shows far too little variety and emotions in his role, even while this was obviously crucial for its story and the overall credibility of it all.
It's only a half good movie really. It has a good and likable first half and a not so good, or very credible and powerful second half.
5/10
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