CHICAGO – Excelsior! Comic book legend Stan Lee’s famous exclamation puts a fine point on the third and final play of Mark Pracht’s FOUR COLOR TRILOGY, “The House of Ideas,” presented by and staged at City Lit Theater in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood. For tickets/details, click HOUSE OF IDEAS.
Film Review: ‘The Best of Me’ is the Worst of Formulaic Romance Novelist Nicholas Sparks
CHICAGO – What do you see in the compilation image below?
Yes, it’s nine films based on books by romance novelist Nicholas Sparks. But look more closely. “Message in a Bottle” opened his can of worms in 1999 and 2002’s “A Walk to Remember” could only say it was based on a best-selling novel. Then, after averaging one film every 1.6 years, they’ve all been riding on the breakout hit of 2004’s “The Notebook” with Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling.
Image credit: Nicholas Sparks
Rating: 1.0/5.0 |
In fact, every single movie poster after “The Notebook” had to say it’s from the author of “The Notebook” or else it would have never seen the light of day. The blessing of having a hit later becomes your burden of trying to repeat it. The problem with films based on Sparks’ bestsellers is they have a formula. He’s gotten so adept at writing it that you can practically do it for him.
Over the years, critics have been panned these movies for this very reason. Of the nine films based on Sparks’ novels, all of them have earned rotten consensus ratings from critics at Rotten Tomatoes. The box offices tell a different story, though, with all nine of those rotten films making money – many four times their production budgets. “Dear John” in 2010 made 4.5 times its $25 million budget and “The Notebook” earned about 4 times its $29 million spend.
Read Adam Fendelman’s full review of “The Best of Me”. |
Nevertheless, films riding Sparks’ money wave have declined over the years as he’s followed his safety net. “The Best of Me” is the worst offender of this formula yet. When watching James Marsden and Michelle Monaghan artificially fall in love, you can literally see him writing the book. The problem with that is you don’t forget about the writer and you don’t fall in love with the characters. My being “a guy” has nothing to do with my tough love on “these kinds of films”.
I enjoyed “The Notebook” just fine. But why I’m so hard on films whose sole purpose is to sell you on the chemistry between two people is because so few can actually pull it off. Those that do truly are gems. Comedies are very tricky and they often fail because it’s so challenging to make you consistently laugh for 2 hours. Romance films are equally thorny because they live or die on their ability to make you fall in love with two actors who are trying to sell it.
Photo credit: Gemma LaMana