Dear John (2010)

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General		Extras
Category	Romance	Main Menu Audio & Animation Deleted Scenes-Alternate Ending Interviews-Cast & Crew-Stars & Director Featurette-Transforming Charleston Featurette-Military in Movie Featurette Featurette-Mr Tyree, The Mule and Benny Dietz Featurette-The Story of Braeden Reed
Rating
Year Of Production	2010
Running Time	103:17
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (78:26)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Ads Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Lasse Hallström
Studio Distributor	Relativity Media Roadshow Home Entertainment	Starring	Channing Tatum Amanda Seyfried Richard Jenkins Henry Thomas D.J. Cotrona Cullen Moss
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	$34.95	Music	Deborah Lurie

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s) English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s) English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

     It seems that Nicholas Sparks is becoming the Philip K Dick of the romance genre; every other film in the genre seems to be based on his work, only the results in his case seem to be far more consistently mediocre. Six of his novels have landed on the silver screen in the last decade or so and the only critical success has been sleeper hit The Notebook; even then it is an arguable claim (it sits around the 50% mark on review aggregator www.rottentomatoes.com). No prizes for guessing why they keep making them, despite any critical disapproval; they are typically inexpensive to produce and they consistently make a bucket load of money. Dear John is no exception.

     Dear John tells the story of a soldier (Channing Tatum), named John (duh!), who comes home on leave to visit his coin collecting, obsessive-compulsive father (Richard Jenkins). John falls in love with a mature, caring college girl Savannah (Amanda Seyfried), living a ways down the beach during her spring break. A rocky romance ensues between these two kids from the opposite ends of the tracks, particularly when Savannah suggests John's old man might have autism shortly before he heads back out to active duty. Whilst on duty, John and Savannah continue their relationship through letters, although the romance takes a number of turns, particularly after John extends his enlistment following the September 11 attacks.

     The first two thirds of the film is actually quite decent, although as the story steadily paints itself into a corner it begins to take silly, frustrating and downright unlikeable turns. On the upside, once acclaimed now all but forgotten director Lasse Hallstrom does a good, albeit a little workmanlike, job of presenting the material. The acting is generally quite good.

     Fans of the actors involved could do a lot worse than giving this one a hire, though certainly rent this one before thinking about buying it. History will probably only ever remember Dear John as the movie that knocked Avatar from the top of the US box office, rather than deserving of anything in its own right.

Video

     The film is presented in its original 2.35:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The video looks decent, though not particularly spectacular. The image is reasonably sharp, with fairly mild grain visible throughout. There is a reasonable level of shadow detail in the image, although the base colour level looks a little bright and very slightly washed out. There is no sign of compression artefacts or film artefacts in the video.

     English subtitles for the hearing impaired are available. Based on the portion sampled they appear to be accurate and well timed.

     This is a RSDL disc with a layer break occurring mid scene at 78:26.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The film features English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kbps) and 2.0 (224Kbps) audio tracks and an English descriptive audio for the visually impaired Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kbps). The audio is decent without being anything to write home about. The dialogue is placed at a good level in the mix and is reasonably clear and easy to discern. Save for a few obvious ADR points, the audio is well synchronised to the video.

     The film features a fitting but forgettable string-heavy orchestral score composed by Deborah Lurie.

     The surrounds are put to reasonable use for environmental effects. The subwoofer is all but forgotten, adding a little bottom end to the score and mostly background rumble to the war-set scenes.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

A conversation with Channing Tatum, Amanda Seyfried and Lasse Hallstrom (5:12)

     The director and two stars fawn over each other for five minutes. Lip service for fans and nothing more.

Transforming Charleston Featurette (14:16)

     By far the most interesting extra on the disc, this one has a look at how the filmmaker's managed to recreate all kinds of environments (including Afghan deserts and East Coast beaches) in and around small-town South Carolina. All done, of course, to meet the requirements of tax-offsets!

Military in Movie Featurette (10:37)

     The film used a military advisor. Being in the armed forces is important and we should all either serve ourselves or respect the awesomeness of those who do - that seems to be the message at any rate!

Mr Tyree, The Mule and Benny Dietz Featurette (4:41)

     A featurette that looks into the facts around the coin collecting sub-plot in the film.

The Story of Braeden Reed Featurette (23:34)

     An awfully long featurette that congratulates a real-life autistic kid who plays an autistic kid in the movie for existing, and lavishes warm fuzzies over the filmmakers for having the bravery to cast the child in question. Ugh.

Alternate Ending (3:33)

     A bittersweet alternate ending, which is apparently true to the book rather than the Hollywood-ending tacked onto the final film.

    The Region 4 edition misses out on a 2 and a half minute long collection of outtakes that are featured on the Region 1 edition, although few will find this a compelling reason to import rather than buy locally.

     A frustrating romantic drama about a soldier's long distance romance with a do-gooding college lass.

     The video and audio are decent without being anything of particular note. The extras are reasonable in number and duration, but in many cases are little more than padding.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall