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After the critical drubbing Britney Spears received for "Crossroads", the knives will be out for the latest MTV starlet attempting to parlay music success into a movie career.
But Mandy Moore only has herself to blame for choosing such a tooth-rottingly sentimental weepie as this, which grafts a "Terms of Endearment"-style tragedy onto a by-the-numbers teen romance.
Eschewing her normal MTV glamour, Mandy plays God-fearing, drably-dressed geek Jamie Sullivan, who becomes the unlikely paramour of local bad boy Landon Carter ("Get it On" star West).
"Promise me you won't fall in love with me," says Jamie, but fall young Landon does - which is a pity, as Moore's character (in a heavily telegraphed plot twist you can see coming a mile off) has one of those secrets which only ever crop up in dumb Hollywood movies.
Based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose prose inspired the no-less-manipulative "Message in a Bottle", "A Walk to Remember" is a thoroughly forgettable vehicle for Miss Moore, who predictably gets to warble a few numbers during her acting debut.
Though no great shakes as an actress, Moore still displays enough charisma and charm to suggest she might have a future in film should the singing career dry up.
However, it's no surprise to find both leads outclassed by Peter Coyote and Daryl Hannah, whose performances as Moore's preacher dad and West's single mom are the only things that make Adam Shankman's mawkish melodrama remotely watchable for anyone over the age of 12.
