A gentle romance I appreciated for its sincerity and warmth, The Vow succeeds without drowning in sap. Rachel McAdams, perhaps the go-to actress today for romantic roles, adds another excellent performance to her career. Channing Tatum has never been the most emotive actor but he seems to be getting better: he has some stiff moments in The Vow, but they are few and far between. McAdams and Tatum also have a fair amount of chemistry together, which is obviously essential for any film of this type to work. Overall, The Vow surpasses the quality of the last two romances the actors were involved in (The Time Traveler's Wife and Dear John, respectively). B+

Review: http://www.worldofkj.com/article.php?i=625

I thought it was cute. McAdams and Tatum had very nice chemistry. I liked the ending. I've heard complaints but I thought it was nice. I'm so glad they left out the religious aspect of the original couple's story. I would not have seen this then .

B

Is this closer to The Notebook or to Dear John in quality?

It depends how much you like The Notebook. It's one of my all-time favorite movies (duh)...The Vow is not nearly as good but it's better than Dear John.

What it's close to is The Time Traveler's Wife.

Which to me means a solid, safe, enjoyable, down-the-middle romantic drama with fairly strong performances.

I don't think so. I didn't like that movie much . I gave both this and The Notebook B's.

Lol usually these movies are sooo over the top.

But it was nice and warm.


The best part was the chemistry between the two..

B+

It didn't work for me. One of the problems I had with the movie came during the scene where after McAdams' character is in the wreck and is staying at their house again to try and regain her memory, she watches a tape of the two of them getting married in the art museum. And the reaction she has to the tape is nothing short of asinine. She kind of scoffs at the video, makes a "well that was cute" kind of face, and then completely forgets about it after she watches it. I'm not asking the film to have her remember everything (there wouldn't be a movie and that's not what happened in real life), but it didn't make any sort of impression on her. She never remembered the video and thought, "well, this guy is acting so nice to me and I can see that we were once in love, maybe I should give him a little bit of a break?" at any point during the rest of the movie? Did the accident also take away her ability to empathize?

And the Scott Speedman love triangle is completely unnecessary. I don't know if it happened in real life or not and I don't care. The film is already dramatic enough wondering whether she'll fall in love with Tatum again (okay, not really, but within the context of the film it's enough), but it's like the filmmakers thought that the story needed another cliched element to it to keep the audience interested. The parents actually already serve that role as a possible wedge.

But all is not lost here. McAdams and Tatum have some pretty decent chemistry with one another and they alone managed to keep me invested throughout. Not enough to point where I could overlook the problems I had, but enough to make this at least watchable.

** (C)

McAdams and Tatum are appealing but the rich parents who want to split them apart and the ex fiancee with I'm a Douche written all over his face were cliche (Eponine Tatiana Maslany's character felt more real and would have been a a more believable obstacle in their way.) There was little sense of adventure to McAdams rediscovering her every day life. it's a little too grounded to feel like a fairy tale love story, and a little too artificial to feel like real people. I did appreciate the low key ending.