A quiz: The plot of A Walk to Remember - a teenybopper She's All That wannabe - contains which of the following?
-The Youthful Rebel
-The Preacher's Daughter
-The Preacher himself, who disapproves of the youthful rebel
-the pick up line "Feeling Christian?"
-a montage of the youthful rebel learning how to dance
-a deadly disease (hint)
-The Rebel's Absent Father, who happens to be a cardiologist (hint hint)
-a list of things to do before a character dies (hint, hint, hint)
-a car chase, a school play, and a wedding
-straight from the preemptive parody Not Another Teen Movie: the jealous girlfriend, the slutty girl, the jerk best friend, and the token black guy. (It's some kind of statement on America when in the year 2002 there's still a token black guy on hand to say things like, "Damn!" and "We'll get a dance party started here, y'all!" and "I need to get my freak on!")
-the lines "I'm sorry you didn't get a miracle." "I did. It was you!"
The answer: All of the above.
As the ads have promised, this is an awful, awful movie. The audience was split between cooing preadolescent girls and people groaning and breaking into hysterics. Occasionally, you could hear a soft, "Oh, sweet, merciful Jesus make it stop." Actually, it was me saying that most of the time.
Mandy Moore, if you don't know, is a pop singer with Britney Spears-like aspirations. She is 17, which makes her younger than everyone at this school. How's that for an ego boost? Also, like Britney and her male counterparts, *NSYNC, she hails from Orlando, Florida, making me more ashamed to be from there every day.
Actually, that's not very fair. She's not that bad of an actress, especially compared to most singers who try to cross over into film. Shane West, the poor sap they got to play the Youthful Rebel that falls in love with her, isn't horrible either. It's the whole "love" part that's the problem. In fact, it's the whole movie that's the problem.
It doesn't help that the screenplay is based on a Nicholas Sparks book, who is the same man responsible for giving the world The Horse Whisperer. I'm sure some of you out there are big fans. Have fun.
Any movie where the boy says "I love you" on the first date - and he's not joking - deserves not only your derision, your cynicism, your scorn, and your best alcohol-induced one-liners, but also for you to spend your money elsewhere.
No actor could make this stuff work. Not when the principal, as a punishment, gives the youthful rebel the lead in the school play (the play is also written by an 8th grader at the school, which, last I checked wasn't standard practice). Or when the play turns out to be all but an excuse to have Ms. Moore sing a solo in the spotlight. Or when the best the school bullies can do is insult her sweater and call her "Virgin Mary." Har, har! Those rascals! Too bad they'd get regular beat-downs at any other high school.
What's especially offensive is that they give one of the characters leukemia without treating it with the seriousness it deserves. When people are being treated for cancer, don't they usually look less than healthy? Lose their hair? Feel weak? Require lots of expensive treatment that would be kind of hard to hide? I only ask this because the character in question manages to hide this from everyone important. Even when it's revealed, he never looks worse than someone with a mild case of the flu.
Then the couple gets married, to fulfill part of the dying character's wish list. I'm serious. We're supposed to just smile and nod as they get hitched, even though they are 17 years old. And then we get the speech: "It was the best summer of our lives. Then, she went to heaven, still believing."
What the hell? The film exposes us to all the melodrama and weepiness of a terminal disease, but then lets us off the hook when it comes to the actual pain and suffering? You know, the parts that make it so hard in real life? For anyone who has had cancer (or even a friend or relative with it), this movie is a slap in the face. Cancer is a deadly, serious matter, and this movie uses it as a way to martyr someone as a perfect, doomed angel.
That aside, A Walk to Remember falls into that beloved "drinking game" category. Every situation is so full of gaps, ridiculous plot turns, and bad dialogue that you could amuse yourself by keeping score. It's certainly better fodder for home video or late night cable than for theaters. It's sort of fun to shout things to the big screen, but it's like paying money to shoot monkeys in a barrel. With a paintball gun. And the monkeys are already dead. From dysentery.
Does Mandy Moore have a career ahead of her? She's no more or less talented than any of the other teenyboppers, and at least she picked a project that didn't have the usual ugly duckling spin. However, the movie goes in way too many directions and takes itself awfully seriously.
It's no 3,000 Miles to Graceland, but lord, it ain't good.
