Review of Safe Haven (2013) by Laura C — 23 Sep 2013

This movie is like every other Nicholas Sparks movie out there, with a little bit of thrill thrown in. If you've seen any of the other movies based on Sparks' novels (Dear John, The Notebook, and The Lucky One to name a few), it'll be hard to find this movie any different until the last twenty minutes or so. Safe Haven is your typical romance movie with an attempt to be a thriller, along with a leading actress that makes the movie boring.

The setting of Safe Haven is like every other Sparks movie. The movie takes place in a small town along a coast line. It's an old, run-down place that people only see because it's on their bus route, but has a pretty view right along the beach, The beach is an "important" factor in this movie, because the two characters need to have their special, romantic moment on the beach (like every other Nicholas Sparks movie).

The two main characters in this movie are Katie (Julianne Hough) and Alex (Josh Duhamel). Julianne Hough plays a character that is running away from her hometown because she apparently murdered what appears to be her husband. This has the audience expecting her to be an emotional wreck, but Hough plays a very boring, monotonic character. Katie was falling in love with Alex, but Hough made it hard to believe that. She looks at him and talks to him as if she has no clue who he is. There was no spark between Hough and Duhamel, and it seemed to be that way because of Hough's flat and boring performance.

Josh Duhamel did a great job with his role until the end of the movie. He was the perfect fit to play an attractive single father running a small town business, while also falling in love with the new girl in town. Near the end, though, when Alex finds out that Katie is wanted for murder, Duhamel ruins his performance. His reaction to the news that the woman he loves was wanted for murder was really underplayed. He was mad for a total of about 5 minutes in the movie, then instantly forgave her for lying about pretty much everything. He even chased her down right before she was about to leave town.

Like all Nicholas Sparks movies, Safe Haven has that one component that makes it a little bit different from the rest of the movies. Safe Haven has some originality because it has a little bit of thrill. The ending is slightly twisted and a bit surprising. This unanticipated twist is what made the movie better than terribly boring, but sadly it wasn't until the last 30 minutes of the movie that it got exciting.

Overall, this movie could have done bigger and better things with an actress besides Julianne Hough and a better ending performance from Josh Duhamel. The twisted ending did give the movie some spark, but it could have had a much better build up to make the beginning not quite as boring. Safe Haven is just another cheesy romance that every teenage girl loves.