<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by Michael Sucsy. Starring Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum.

Channing Tatum looks good and most women will desperately want to remember him if they get amnesia but they’re not Rachel McAdams and this ‘inspired by’ story isn’t very rational.

Yes he looks like the perfect man but Channing Tatum isn’t really a great actor. I don’t know why but just the thought of him in a movie gives me the shivers. Maybe it was after watching him in the ill-fated, ill-conceived G.I. Joe but there’s something terribly terrible about the attitude he exudes. But yes, he does look gorgeous and has a great body so I’m guessing they’re trying really hard to make him leading man material.

In The Vow, Leo (Channing Tatum) and Paige (Rachel McAdams) are married and work as a recording studio owner and a sculptor respectively. They have good friends, an eclectic lifestyle and a picture-perfect romance. Until, they stop their car in the middle of the road on a snowy night to make love and… you guessed it, they get rammed by a truck, Paige flies out of the window (she undid her seatbelt, tut-tut) and they’re both rushed to hospital where Leo realises that his wife doesn’t remember him anymore. Doesn’t remember me? Look at me, I’m Channing Tatum, hot, thoughtful, sensitive, caring. But Paige is repulsed.

So in come her ‘estranged’ parents played by Sam Neill and Jessica Lange who take the opportunity that their daughter now only remembers things before her marriage and times when she was happy as a schoolgirl with her parents. But then Leo makes her listen to a voice message she left him, which is oh-so-sweet that she gives him a chance and goes and stays with him.

Rachel McAdams plays the amnesia victim convincingly, making a switch from sweet babe to spoilt brat. Her performance is admirable considering the very bland script and uninteresting storyline. Channing Tatum plays the good boy, trying hard to convince her they’re married and she loves him. So hard in fact that he undresses at every chance he can get, much to the appreciation of the women in the audience even if Paige isn’t always swayed by his muscular frame.

It’s boring. It would have been so much more interesting had the roles been reversed. What if she had amnesia and found out he was her husband and wanted desperately to fall in love with him but he didn’t want to anymore or decided to follow some other dream now that she didn’t remember him anymore. Now that may have been worth a watch.

I have to say though, Tatum has improved a tad as an… well I won’t say an actor, but as a performer. Sam Neill as the underhanded dad is okay and Jessica Lange’s speech about why she stayed with him after he cheated on her with Paige’s young friend is laughable and cliché. The end is predictable, saccharine and dull, which makes you wonder why this ‘inspired by a true story’ story would make someone want to do a movie on it. This is one film you won’t need amnesia to forget.