Masochism Month Part 1: Dear John

You know what movies put me off the most? Chick flicks. It may not be that much of a surprise, me having testicles and all, but I really can’t stand them. They almost always have very little going for them, and they nearly always make me want to hurl. I can’t think of a single genre of movies that could possibly be worse. And that’s why, for your enjoyment my lovely fans, I’m going to completely torture myself for an entire month with one review a week going on about these terrible, terrible movies. So let’s begin with the movie that is a shining example of exactly why I consider this genre stupid and annoying, “Dear John”.
The movie is about a soldier named John, no shit, and the woman he falls in love with, named Savannah. He is deployed for a tour of service that lasts one year, and she promises to wait for him. Right at the end of his commitment however, the September 11th attack happens and John volunteers to stay longer to serve his country. But this leads to the question of if Savannah can wait that long for him to return…
First of all, the performances in this movie are pathetic, but the worst is from John, played by Channing Tatum. If you’ve ever seen the trailer for this movie, it has the scene that proves his performance is terrible, and I find that hilarious. He breaks down “crying” at the conflict of staying with Savannah or going back to the army and really, really cannot pull it off at all, and it just goes downhill from there. Savannah, Amanda Seyfried is just as bad, in fact, nearly every actor in this movie feels like they are phoning it in. It’s like no one involved in the production seriously wanted to try. The father is sedate and the supporting cast is practically non-existent. This is really sad because, Channing Tatum aside, the rest of the cast has proven before that they can in fact pull off a performance. Hell, this movie has fucking Elliot from “E.T.” in it! True, here he looks like one of those skeezy pervs you see going into strip clubs, but it’s still Henry Thomas, and he’s still a much better actor than this movie would lead you to believe.
And I think a lot of this had to come from the script. The story is an ok concept, but the execution is terrible. This is really my second biggest problem with the movie. It lacks all substance! Seriously! I have seen fucking hallmark cards that had more substance than this piece of shit! About half the movie is taken up with montages! They should have just called this “Montage: The Movie” and had that montage song from “South Park” as the only thing on the sound track. I know it may be harsh to complain about a love story having montages, because they all do, but “Dear John” abuses the fuck out of them. We have: A montage of John and Savannah going out, then an exposition scene, then more montage frolicking, another exposition scene, then a montage of John and Savannah going separate ways, then more montage of that, then 9/11 happens, more exposition, then more montage, and that’s how this movie goes on for two hours! Make a montage drinking game out of this and you’ll die of alcohol poisoning! Forgetting the fact that this makes the movie insanely fucking boring, I’m calling bullshit on the chemistry between these two because of it. All we fucking see is frolicking! We never really get a chance to see why they fall in love, other than the script saying so, and really it doesn’t seem like Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried even like each other that much. I would go so far as to say that Natalie Portman and Hayden Christianson had better chemistry in the “Star Wars” prequels, how sad is that?
Plus in the second act, Savannah dumps John with a Dear John (couldn’t resist, that joke was way too easy.) and he decides he has nothing left to live for and that he just wants to be a military man for the rest of his life. You know, because he couldn’t possibly find someone else or take care of his father or anything like that. What slays me most about this is that Savannah leaves John to marry Henry Thomas’ character, who has an autistic son, was abandoned his wife, and is dying of cancer. Why did she do it if she was so “in love” with John? Because it was the right thing to do apparently. Don't know why, but that was her reason. Doesn't stop her cock teasing John when she sees him again of course… The amount of clichés in that is so dense that I’m surprised that the universe didn’t come to an end because of it!
My biggest problem with this movie? Using 9/11 as a plot device! This is just tasteless, and I mean really tasteless. Maybe if it hadn’t been mentioned only ONCE in the whole movie, I’d be more lenient. Since it isn’t I say directly to the filmmakers this. You should be ashamed. Using national tragedies in movies is fine and good as long as you don’t belittle the severe nature of them. I hate to say this, but Michael Bay did a better job in “Pearl Harbor”. God I never thought I’d bring that movie up as good example, but it’s true. There the event is never forgotten even if the rest of the movie was the most idiotic thing I’ve ever seen. Here, there is exactly one scene that mentions it after rather tastelessly using the footage of the towers, and then nothing. Probably because an actual story would get in the way of all the montages. I may be overly harping on this, but since it’s John’s motivation to extend his service in the army, and is supposed to be important, I feel I’m well within my rights to give the filmmakers shit about just dropping it after one scene.
I usually skip talking about the music in my reviews, mostly because I feel that as long as it isn’t annoying or out of place, it’s doing it’s job and I have nothing much to say. Here though, I’ve never heard a more annoying soundtrack in my life. It’s all acoustic guitars and bad new age music. If it actually adds anything to the movie, it’s just to make it even more drool inducingly boring.
Overall, I have nothing positive to say about this movie. Nothing at all. At least “Alice in Wonderland” had cool visuals, and “Legion” had some unintentionally funny moments in it. Here, the acting sucks, the pacing is lazy, the love story stupid, and the soundtrack annoying. I just can’t believe in how many ways this movie utterly fails. It’s as if it set out to not have any entertainment value at all. Something many other chick flicks can actually claim to have. See you next week folks!