Cameron recently watched The Vow with his girlfriend and was so saddened by the film that it drove him to write an article on why this movie wasn’t so much bad as it was soul-sucking.

Sappy-love-stories like “The Notebook,” “Remember Me,” and “A Walk to Remember,” are usually awful movies that are just vapid juggernauts of the Hollywood-niche-division that touch on real-life situations that people can relate too so they feel some kinship to the characters on the Screen. “The Notebook,” is one that stands out as a fairly well acted and sad-as-hell tale of a couple reliving memories of their love because the wife in the situation has Alzheimer’s and is slowly losing all her abilities at everything. “The Vow,” with Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams is along the same lines as “The Notebook,” in that it deals with the same very real-life situations that affect people in, well, real-life and it stars Rachel McAdams. Aside from that “The Vow,” opens with a kick to the nether-regions of a man or woman’s anatomy and never stops kicking until the film ends.

The Vow came out in February, and as a man I had no interest in seeing it in theaters but as someone with a girlfriend I had to be able to adapt to the possibility of seeing it; that adaptive process was the keen idea of just renting it when it comes out. Now that the dreaded day has come, we decided to rent the Vow and from the get-go I was reluctant that I never set my foot down in protest.

Side Note: The only other reason why I was kind of juiced up for this film n the other hand was because I recently developed a totally hetero bro-crush on Channing Tatum. I don’t know when the bro-crush became, but this guy has recently decided to act, and do a damn-decent job at it. It first began with G.I. Joe (thankfully the producers of the second one have delayed the release to add more Tatum.) and then soon after evolved with 21 Jump Street. He totally has this bro-you’d-totally-be-down-to-get-hammered-with-all-the-time feel, something that wasn’t there earlier in his career when you felt like he’s going to just out-dance you and steal your girlfriend. He was also once a male stripper and is now doing a movie about male strippers. Kudos to you Mr. Tatum.

Right off the bat in “The Vow,” it just feels like some sappy BS Tatum is narrating about the moment of impact and how it relates to what’s happening on the screen, from there you’re introduced to Leo and Paige (Tatum and McAdams), two Chicago kids head-over-heels for each other on their way home from  a movie. They both have an uber-hipster vibe to them and later in the movie you find out McAdams is an art student and Tatum owns his own struggling recording studio.

Leo and Paige pull up to a stop sign and they begin to get frisky with one another and Paige proceeds to tell Leo that, “I heard There’s a 99% chance of getting pregnant if you do it in a car,” mind you they are on a street and stopped at a stop sign, all very normal things, only Paige is looking to get her conception on at a stop sign in the middle of Chicago. As their promiscuity escalates you slowly see headlights coming from behind them, then, WHAM, they get slammed from behind by a trash-truck or something of the sorts. What begins as a routine rear-ending turns to horror when you remember that Paige had removed her safety belt in order to get her freak on. As Paige continues forward she doesn’t seem to be stopping her forward momentum and, BAM, in glorious slow motion, Paige goes crashing through the front window and with a single collision so begins one of the saddest tales of lies, adultr turns to horror when you remember that Paige had removed her safety belt in order to get her freak on. As Paige continues forward she doesn’t seem to be stopping her forward momentum and, BAM, in glorious slow motion, Paige goes crashing through the front window and with a single collision so begins one of the saddest tales of lies, adultery and love.

As soon as you discover that her head trauma has erased a sizable portion of her memory the shmuckery ensues.   Her parents, Rita and Bill, come back into the picture, played by Jessica Lange and Sam Neill (HELL YEAH that’s Dr. Grant from Jurassic Park.) and attempt to win their daughters affection back. The reason why they’re trying to win her back? Well, Bill decided to cheat on his wife, Paige’s mother, with Paige’s friend; a startling discovery that is brought back to Paige while at a grocery store when her friend, the one that banged her dad, reminds her about the adultery.  This was the entire reason she hadn’t talked to her family in three-years and why she had quit law school for art school.

From the moment Paige wakes up from her coma everyone is out to re-write wrongs they had done to her, and in turn force poor Leo, her husband, out of the picture. They are madly in love as is shown through flashbacks. This love means shit to her mom and dad, and her ex-fiancé, who she believes she is still engaged to because that’s the last thing she remembers. The entire movie is one giant struggle for poor Leo who never gets a break. She even wanders to her ex’s office and shares a brief kiss with him.

Leo tries his hardest throughout this movie to remind her of their love and no one gives a shit. Their friends pretend to give a shit, but never actually do anything. The only person who hadn’t wronged her was Leo and he’s the only one who gets repeatedly shit on. Well save for the ex, who at the time she thought it wasn’t going anywhere and broke off the engagement. Then as post-coma Paige totally cock teases the ex who plays into the cock-teasing and gets his ass cold-cocked by Leo at Paige’s sister’s wedding thus making Leo, the only real hero of this story, look even more like an ass-clown.

The movie continues with ups and downs like these throughout until Leo finally says “fuck it,” and gives up, because her memory isn’t coming back and she doesn’t seem to love him the same way anymore. Then one day as Leo is coming home with a hot-piece-of-hipster-tail and little-miss no memory/unknowingly-cheating harlot is posted-up outside his house looking for love in all the wrong places; like an idiot, Leo takes her back and everything ends, happily ever-after.

This is a load of horseshit to me, and that’s the only conclusion I could come to after the film. He tries his hardest the entire film to get this woman to love him again, and even keeps the fact that he knows what her parents did and why she left to himself so her parents can have a do-over with their daughter and she still chooses everything over him it isn’t until she finds out what her dad did that all of a sudden she is totally back in love with the life she had and this poor Leo fool falls right back into love with her. I know people like to believe in the one-true-love and all that, but when that love shits all over you metaphorically and then expects you to jump when she says jump that’s just not a vow someone shout take. And damn right pun intended.