SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

Lawbolisted Powerful

Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Rick Bakas Nicholas Sparks hit paydirt when The Notebook came out. Everything coalesced perfectly with the story and actors who portrayed the characters in the movie. The Notebook elevated Sparks to another level as a writer.Since then, Sparks has tried to recapture the magic of The Notebook by remixing the story and trying to retell it over and over with different twists at the end. That's one reason I've lost respect for Nicholas Sparks as a writer. He's basically rehashing the same ideas in different order.The Best of Me is basically a 90-minute Super Bowl ad for Budweiser. The product placement is so intentionally that it's actually distracting. There must have been 10 different scenes with Bud placed 'just so' in order for the viewing audience to see the label.James Marsden (Dawson) was great in The Notebook, and he's great in this movie. He and Michelle Monaghan are really the only thing that makes this movie bearable. Their character development was solid, but the rest of the characters including Tuck, their elderly BFF who for some reason was friends with both characters, and Monaghan's on-screen husband was weak.As a side note, the younger actor who played Dawson and James Marsden look NOTHING like each other. It was pretty distracting to follow the story with two guys playing the same character who didn't even 'kind of' look the same.We never really know why Dawson's dad is such a jerk. They look nothing like each other, and Dawson's dad looks to be about the same age. They hate each other through forced tension that eventually leads to an unbelievable climax at the end where Dawson gets shot by his dad from about 100 yards away for no good reason. I don't know why any dad would do what is portrayed in this movie.I supposed the need to have something dramatic was the impetus for the scene where Dawson had to die some terrible death, but it just wasn't believable. Perhaps Sparks couldn't gone and pulled some other scene from The Notebook and rehashed that instead.Finally, the lighting and cinematography of this film was off. It was too bright and fuzzy in a number of the scenes that made it look more like a dream sequence than what was supposed to be happening.From here on out, just watch The Notebook instead of Sparks rehashing and remixing The Notebook into something less than spectacular.

micki-33048 I saw this wonderful movie in 2014 when it came out in the theaters & I thought it was a beautiful depiction of young love, loss & second chances. You figure out early that something tragic will happen since Dawson really believes he survived the drowning for a reason, especially after they get back together. Then Amanda's son needs a new heart & you just knew what was going to happen. I left that theater in tears, I hated that Dawson had to die so Amanda's son could live. However, I just watched this movie again today on TV & it has a totally different ending. He does not die and they walk off into the sunset together. That should not have happened & I think selling out to criticism by changing the ending is bad form. I was going to buy this movie but not now. I would have given it a 10 had I not seen it today.

zkonedog As a 29-year old male, "The Best Of Me" was not a movie I would typically watch. But, it just happened to be "let someone else pick the movie for a change" night and so I gave it a try. While it isn't an outright horrible flick, it was exactly what I expected...and that's not why I watched movies.For a basic plot summary, "Best of Me" tells the story of Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) & Dawson (James Marsden), two 30-something adults brought back to their mutual hometown by the death of a friend. As they get re-acquainted, their romantic backstory is shown via flashbacks, with Young Amanda (Liano Liberato) and Young Dawson (Luke Bracey) navigating the trials of young love. Back in the present, the two must reconcile the lives that were with the lives that are.The trouble with this movie is that it is exactly as predictable and sappy as one would think...nothing more, nothing less. If you are a sucker for these types of movies and like to know what to expect when going in, than you will probably love this type of film-making. However, if you want a few genuine surprises and relationships that don't feel like they are being heavy manipulated to stimulate tears and tug on the heartstrings, than you should probably stay away.An interesting thought when it comes to Nicholas Sparks book-to-film translations: I don't have any "hard numbers" to back me up on this, of course, but I think it is a pretty safe bet that "The Notebook" has best the most well-received. I know young and old (and many in between) who have thoroughly enjoyed that flick. The reason? It was first. Everything after that has kind of been a different variation on the same theme: sappy romance with large doses of tragedy. I wonder if perhaps the novelty is wearing a bit thin with films like this one.That being said, it seems like there are easily enough people who like this formula and will continue to populate theaters for it. If you are able to take everything strictly at face value and not think too much, I can see how it would be very possible to get swept away in the dramatic experience. Nothing wrong with that...but not my cup of tea by a mile.

Prismark10 Nicolas Sparks novels have some devout fans but I doubt even the most ardent ones would say this is a successful translation of the story.Dawson Cole (James Marsden) is an offshore oil rig worker. Amanda (Michelle Monaghan) is unhappily married with a young son. In 1992 when both were teenagers from different sides of the social divide both became star crossed lovers. At the time young Dawson who was estranged from his backwoods drug dealing family was kind of adopted by Tuck (Gerald McRaney.) A tragic incident tore the young couple apart. Now 21 years later, Tuck's death means they come together for his funeral and both discover that they still carry a torch for one another.Like The Notebook there are parallel stories in two time streams. Confusion will arise because the younger actors look nothing like the older versions. It is like watching a different film. To yearn for the days when a film such as A League of Their Own went out of its way to cast actors that looked like their younger counterparts.The other confusing aspects is that 1992 in this film seems to look much like 1962. It is like that the film-makers wanted to evoke some other time period or maybe this small town was definitely stuck behind the times with old cars just like Cuba.The film wants to be a slushy romance between two people destined to be with each other. In the intervening two decades they have had problems moving on from their feeling for each other which actually sounds a little creepy.Of course ghosts of the past drum up conflict and as the film neared the end even my wife piped up by saying this would be a really lame film if x,y & z happened as a twist.Well what more could be said than the uninspired and lazy does take place. Sometimes a film deserves the label. Lame.