WATCHING the first 60 minutes of Dear John is the equivalent of being waterboarded with treacle for an hour.
Not only is the script and storyline unforgivably saccharine, if you don't have an uncontrollable urge to rip the sickeningly beautiful Channing Tatum's army fatigues off in every scene, it's characters are about as palatable as a stale, half-eaten gingerbread man.
Doe-eyed Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), who never swears except in her thoughts, and beefy soldier John (Tatum) meet by chance in a small seaside town in America.
After John heroically dives into the sea to retrieve Savannah's dropped purse, it's not long before the pair are snogging passionately in the rain and spouting vomit-inducing dialogue which make viewers with even the strongest of constitutions queasy.
But John isn't all good. Oh no, he has a dark past. So dark, we never really find out what it is. Not that Savannah really cares. She's in love...after just two weeks.
When John is forced to return to the army on overseas duty, they decide to exchange letters until his return.
However, despite returning after a year's tour, when New York's twin towers fall on 9/11, John decides he must sacrifice being with his true love and fight for freedom in Afghanistan.
Separated from each other indefinitely, we should feel some sort of sympathy and heart ache for the lovers, but instead all you feel is apathy.
Not even John's bumpy relationship with his autistic father can save this film from its cloying sentimentality.
A plot twist at the end almost redeems this soppy, tear-free drama, but it's too little too late.
Dear John (12A) is out on DVD now.
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