Movie Mention Monday; Dear John

I know out in the blog universe, there are various editions of this meme on movie versions of books, I don't know if this will be a regular post every monday, I guess that depends on the amount of movies I see based on books I have read!

This weeks post will be about the movie DEAR JOHN. I saw this movie February 5th, so the friday it came out. I went with my roommate and my sister. I lent my book to my roommate so she had read the book before we went, however my sister hadn't, and i found that having read the book effected my feelings on the movie.

My opinions; well I might be biased since I have a soft spot for Channing Tatum, ever since his "Step Up" days. However, I don't think his acting is the best, certain mannerisms of his annoy me, but I think he was made for this role. He fills out the army silhouette nicely. Amanda Seyfried WAS Savannah, even though the Savannah in t

he book was a brunette, this didn't bother me.

I really enjoyed the book. It was a typical Nicolas Spark's book; a light, enjoyable, romance book with a twist. The only thing that bothered me about this book was that there was a couple of long passages about "war" scenes that were hard to remain concentrated on, but they were also mandatory to the setting of the book. After all, this book is about war and its loses. War is the reality.

The movie was different from the book in a couple aspects, however I tried to remind myself that one should watch the movie with the notion that it is a piece of work on its own and shouldn't be judged beside the book, the book is a separate piece of work.

Overall, I liked the movie. I thought Tatum and Seyfried had great onscreen chemistry. The ending was different, but i think if the ending was the same as the book there wouldn't be as many satisfied viewers. My sister, having not read the book, didn't like the movie. She had a problem with one of the characters who she thought was too "old", this character was younger in the book, and because of the ending of the book this was disturbing to her. I didn't have a problem with this, probably because I knew the character differently in the book, and viewed him the same as his onscreen character.

However, I recommend people going to watch this. It was a heartbreaking, real, movie. I live in a small town where the boys my age play hockey and join the army, so i felt connected to John. I will definitely watch this movie again when it comes out on DVD.