Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images
- "The Notebook" was released 18 years ago on June 25.
- It remains the best-reviewed movie based on a Nicholas Sparks novel.
- Here's how all 11 on-screen adaptations of Sparks' novels stack up, according to critics.
Lionsgate
"The Choice" stars Benjamin Walker and Teresa Palmer as next-door-neighbors Travis and Gabby, who despite all odds, fall in love (even though Gabby has a boyfriend, leaving her with a choice to make). Then, when Gabby is involved in a devastating car accident, Travis then has a choice to make if he wants to keep her on life support.
"We the people deserve every nutty coincidence, beautiful disaster, luxurious grief montage, and supernatural final-act reveal. Garbage-entertainment is still entertainment. Why, then, does 'The Choice' almost entirely opt out of its own game," wrote The Wrap's Dave White.
Gemma LaMana/Relativity
In "The Best of Me," James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan play the current-day versions of Dawson and Amanda, respectively. Their 1992 counterparts, who fell in love in high school, are played by Luke Bracey and Liana Liberato.
When Dawson's surrogate father Tuck dies, he's called back to his North Carolina hometown and is forced to reconnect with Amanda, who he broke up with to keep her from sticking around and waiting for him while he was in jail for accidentally killing his abusive cousin — it's a long story — and instead, forcing her to go to college. In the present, they're estranged and Amanda has even married someone else ... but you can guess what happens when they reunite.
"'The Best Of Me,' like all Sparks' work, would rather kill his characters and leave a beautiful corpse than have them continue a real, scarred relationship," wrote Scott Tobias for The Dissolve.
Relativity Media
Julianne Hough stars in "Safe Haven" as a woman, Erin, who flees her abusive cop husband Kevin after stabbing him and arrives in the North Carolina town Southport. She adopts a new identity, Katie, befriends her neighbor Jo (Cobie Smulders), and slowly falls in love with one of Southport's residents, Alex (Josh Duhamel), a widower with two kids.
We won't spoil the truly bonkers twist of this movie, but we will say it involves ghosts.
"A movie whose punch line is so delightfully absurd that even after you pretty much know what's coming you spit out your Pepsi anyway," wrote Wesley Morris for Grantland.
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
"The Last Song" is now best-known for being the movie where the former A-list couple Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth met and first fell in love. In it, Cyrus plays Ronnie, a disaffected NYC teenager who has given up her dreams of playing piano, while Hemsworth plays Will, a popular resident of his Georgia beach town who works at the aquarium and takes a liking to Ronnie.
Of course, there has to be some tragedy — Ronnie's father, played by Greg Kinnear, is secretly dying of cancer, and has been ostracized by the town residents, who believe he accidentally burnt down the town's church.
"Here's the revelation: Miley Cyrus is a really interesting movie star in the making, with an intriguing echo-of-foghorn speaking voice, and a scuffed-up tomboyish physicality (in the Kristen Stewart mode) that sets her apart from daintier girls," wrote Lisa Schwarzbaum for Entertainment Weekly.
Warner Bros. Pictures
"The Lucky One" stars Zac Efron as Logan Thibault, a veteran who is determined to track down a woman in a photo he found that he believes kept him safe during his time in Iraq. He eventually finds her, and discovers that her name is Beth (Taylor Schilling), that she's divorced from Keith, the town's deputy sheriff, and has a 8-year-old son Ben.
Logan and Beth slowly develop a relationship, but he keeps the photo of Beth a secret until he discovers that the original owner of the photo was Beth's brother Dan, another soldier who died in Iraq.
"Efron sells it almost single-handedly through sheer force of scrumminess," wrote Robbie Collin of The Telegraph.
Warner Brothers/Getty Images
Only the second Sparks adaptation ever, the movie version of "Walk" updates the novel's setting from 1950s North Carolina to the early 2000s. Shane West stars as Landon Carter, a popular, if a little lost, high-schooler. After being involved in a prank that seriously injures one of his classmates, he's forced to be in the high school play with Jamie (Mandy Moore), a loner who is dedicated to her faith.
Predictably, they fall in love, but as with every Sparks movie, there's a tragic twist.
"Directed by Adam Shankman from Nicholas Sparks's inspirational novel, 'A Walk to Remember' proves that a movie about goodness is not the same thing as a good movie," wrote The New York Times' A.O. Scott.
Screen Gems
In "Dear John," Channing Tatum plays the titular John, a soldier on leave in Charleston, South Carolina. During his time off, he meets college student Savannah, played by Amanda Seyfried, and the two quickly fall in love. They communicate through letters, but as John continues to re-enlist after the events of 9/11, they slowly drift apart until John comes home to take care of his dying father, played by Richard Jenkins.
"'Dear John' carefully distills selected elements of human experience and reduces them to a sweet and digestible syrup. It may not be strong medicine, but it delivers an effective, pleasing dose of pure sentiment and vicarious heartache," wrote A.O. Scott for The New York Times.
Warner Bros.
Gere plays Dr. Paul Flanner, a troubled surgeon who is staying in a bed-and-breakfast that Lane's character Adrienne is watching over for her friend while deciding what to do about her estranged husband, played by Christopher Meloni. Over the course of a weekend, they fall in love and continue their relationship via letters when Paul goes on a trip to Ecuador to reunite with his estranged son Mark (James Franco).
"'Nights in Rodanthe' delivers a fantasy vision of romance for the over-40 set, and, really, what's wrong with that? The actors are well chosen, reprising versions of roles they've played for years," wrote Reyhan Harmanci of SFGATE.
20th Century Fox
In the present-day storyline, Britt Robertson and Scott Eastwood star as Wake Forest University student Sophia and professional bull-rider Luke. They fall in love, even as Sophia disapproves of Luke's dangerous career.
Sophia meets 90-year-old Ira (Alan Alda) after she rescues him from a car crash. As she visits him, he tells her about his relationship with his wife through flashbacks, in which he's played by Jack Huston and his wife Ruth is played by Oona Chaplin.
"Unfortunately, Chaplin's brilliance, Alda's funny crustiness, and Eastwood's vulnerability aren't enough to keep this film afloat," wrote Alex Abad-Santos for Vox.
Warner Bros. Pictures
The cast of "Message in a Bottle" is stacked: It stars Robin Wright as Theresa and Kevin Costner as Garrett, as the receiver and writer of the titular message, respectively, while Garrett's adopted father Dodge is played by legend of the screen Paul Newman.
In "Message in a Bottle," Theresa finds a message in a bottle written by Garrett to his dead wife. While on a trip for her job as a reporter to learn more about Garrett, the two (predictably) fall in love while Garrett's learn to grieve and move on from his wife — until tragedy strikes.
"The climactic events are shameless, contrived, and wildly out of tune with the rest of the story. To saddle Costner, Penn and Newman with such goofy melodrama is like hiring Fred Astaire and strapping a tractor on his back," wrote Roger Ebert.
New Line Cinema
Even with a relatively low critics score of 53%, the 85% audience score shows that "The Notebook" is a true crowd-pleaser.
Starring Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams in their first big starring roles, "The Notebook" follows Gosling's Noah and McAdams' Allie from the beginning of their love story as teenagers through years of separation until their eventual reunion on the eve of Allie's wedding to Lon (played by the always-charming James Marsden).
If that doesn't sound that different than all the other Sparks movies, keep in mind that its the electric chemistry between Gosling and McAdams (who went on to date in real life) that keeps fans returning to this story again and again.
"A honey-dipped love story with a surprisingly tart aftertaste, 'The Notebook' is a better-than-you'd-expect adaptation of Nicholas Sparks's bestselling novel of the same name," wrote Leslie Felperin for The Times.
Every Nicholas Sparks adaptation, ranked by critics
Source: Kalayaan News
0 comments :
Post a Comment