Well folks, Avatar’s two-month long reign of terror at the top of the box office has come to a close. As you may recall, Logan and I weren’t big fans of the film, so we’ve both been waiting for the arrival of the movie that would knock it down a peg. I’m proud to announce that that movie is Dear John, and when I say proud, I mean deeply, deeply ashamed.
I haven’t seen Dear John, and because I never will, I read the plot synopsis. After all, I had to know what manner of movie could dethrone the king. If you’re planning on seeing it, but are waiting to catch Avatar one more time for comparison’s sake, be advised that SPOILERS follow.
Okay. So apparently Channing Tatum, a soldier, and Amanda Seyfried, a girl, meet and fall in love. Channing confides that his dad’s been distant ever since his mother left. Naturally, this causes Amanda to suggest that, hey, maybe he’s autistic. This pisses Channing off, so he goes back to war, but the two develop a deep emotional bond through letter-writing because if there’s one person who you always bond with, it’s the chick you hooked up with one summer that told you she thought your dad was autistic right after meeting him.
They’re in so much love it’s not even funny. So naturally, Channing continually re-enlists in the army to make sure he’ll never have to come home and reveal to Amanda that he was actually born a woman. Just kidding! That would be interesting. Eventually, Amanda realizes that there are other men in the world, some of whom she’s met upwards of three times. Thus, she pens the titular Dear John letter. Channing assumes that Amanda’s going to marry her snooty rich friend from earlier in the film. This sends him into a patriotic super-rage, causing him to take a dangerous mission where he gets shot, but not fatally, leading me to believe that this was a failed attempt to have something actually happen in this movie.
Upon returning home, he discovers that Amanda has in fact married her NON-rich friend with the autistic child, which, since his child is autistic, makes everything heartwarming and all right. Channing says goodbye to his dying father, who manages to suddenly become important, then he sells his father’s coin collection to pay for an operation for Amanda’s husband, who, by the way, is totally dying. Be warned! A long distance relationship with Channing Tatum is so brutally unfulfilling, that it will drive you into the arms of your dying, non-rich platonic friend. I repeat: Three months of emotionally torturous hospital visits capped with a funeral is preferable to one letter from Channing Tatum.
So what I’m saying is this makes perfect sense. The only movie that could have toppled Avatar was one that actually outmatched its meandering, maudlin, plotless mediocrity in every way. Way to go Dear John! I look forward to the remake next year. And every year after that. And all years previous as well.
Is it just me or is Tim Burton on total autopilot these days? I don’t want to say “parody of himself” just yet, but his most recent films are Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Those are just three existing stories about which somebody said “Wouldn’t it be cool if this was kind of screwed up and goth?” Of course there’s also The Corpse Bride, which is just a version of A Nightmare Before Christmas that Burton actually bothered to direct.
