Review of The Vow (2012) by The D — 14 Jan 2014

(4/10).

The Vow is a romantic drama starring Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams and they play a couple who are madly in love. Things take a turn for the worst though when a truck rams their car from behind and Rachel McAdams hits her head. When she wakes up from her coma, she doesn't remember who Channing Tatum is or anything about him. Because of this, Channing Tatum is determined to make her fall in love with him all over again. Will he succeed?

First off, The Vow is not actually as bad as I thought it was going to be. It's actually better than all of the Nicolas Sparks adaptations, but that's barely a compliment to the film because pieces of shit are usually better than the Nicolas Sparks movies. That being said, The Vow still isn't very good. The premise actually has potential because losing one's memory is incredibly frightening and I would have liked to have seen the movie explore what the repercussions of the memory loss are and how it affects everyone around you, but it kind of glosses over them. Instead, the movie is insistent on focusing on Channing Tatum's romantic attempts to get her back, which then turns into a cliche'd mess of a film.

Channing Tatum has grown on me as an actor. At first, I thought he was atrocious and he had done nothing of notice, but then in 2012, he starred in Haywire and Magic Mike: 2 Steven Soderbergh films where Channing Tatum actually gave really good performances. If you want proof that Channing Tatum is capable of really good performances, watch Magic Mike and avoid The Vow like the plague. Channing Tatum is playing his old wooden self in this movie and his performance is really bad. Rachel McAdams is charming in the film, but her charm isn't enough to overcome many of the eye-rolling moments and cliched romantic cheesiness.

There are a few moments of sentimentality that were able to hook me and are affecting, but for the most part, they overdo the level of sentimentality and it comes off like a Hallmark Greeting card. The Vow is for people who can't get enough romantic dramas or Nicolas Sparks in their diets, but for regular movie-goers, The Vow is too cliched, unoriginal and blandly acted to recommend.