The Vow

The film isn't as bad as what it looks like--the Chinatown knockoff equivalent of a Nicholas Sparks movie--but that doesn't mean that those outside the target audience won't find it a painful experience.

An earnest and occasionally touching romantic drama that sweeps aside the devastating narrative potential of a traumatic brain injury to traffic in a more benign depiction of amnesia.

The film's Nicholas Sparks-style sweet nothings extract as many eye rolls as "aws"; it's a box of cheap chocolates for someone you just met and you're not really sure you care for.

The Vow is a welcome antidote to cynicism, and a bracing tonic that proves love hasn't disappeared from the film experience completely.

I enjoyed just about every second of it, this story - inspired by a real event - keeping me captivated no matter how many times the script came perilously close to jumping the shark or falling off the rails.

The Vow makes the least of its concept, refusing to acknowledge that a love need not be perfect to merit holding on to.

That hypothetical scenario is enough to choke anyone up, but it’s the true story that inspired The Vow and was brought to life by Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams.

A paint-by-numbers romance yet it is a paint-by-numbers romance that will work for those who surrender to it.

Rachel McAdams cruises merrily through The Vow as if she's humouring her co-star, the script and the audience.

The chemistry between the two leads is severely hampered because they aren't really together on screen that much. Instead, we get the parental subplot that completely undermines everything.