Salt Lake Tribune Review
With every new global conflict comes the inevitable war-movie romance, and the Iraq war has its own painfully old-fashioned love story with "Dear John," based on the book by
Nicholas Sparks ( The Notebook ). A college student on break ("Big Love's" Amanda Seyfried) has a two-week love affair with a strong-and-silent army sergeant on R&R (
Channing Tatum), leading to the well-worn question of what to do when they go their separate ways. Even with all of the love-story conventions at play, the movie's biggest flaw is how passionless the relationship is. Seyfried is a fresh face as a less glamorous lead, but Tatum is lustless and too somber as her boyfriend.
-- Vince Horiuchi
The rundown: Amanda Seyfried and
Channing Tatum star in this relentlessly old-fashioned but passionless war romance about an Iraq War sergeant and a student. 108 minutes. (VH)
Synopsis: Director
Lasse Hallström and screenwriter
Jamie Linden collaborate to adapt author
Nicholas Sparks' novel about a young soldier who falls for an idealistic college girl. Savannah Curtis (Amanda Seyfried) was on spring break when she first met John Tyree (
Channing Tatum), who was home on temporary leave. For the smitten soldier it was practically love at first sight. Over the course of the next seven years, when each deployment seemed more treacherous than the last, the love letters that Savannah sent to John were one of the only things that kept him going. However, those loving and heartfelt correspondences would ultimately yield consequences that neither the brave soldier nor his one true love could have ever foreseen.~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
