A Walk to Remember tries to be a 50s-style tear-jerker for a whole new generation. But does it succeed or is it just so sweet it may rot your teeth.

A Walk to Remember stars teen-pop-sensation Mandy Moore (Princess Diaries) as Jamie Sullivan, a preacher's daughter who has a unique outlook on life. She falls in love with her high-school's rebel Landon Carter (Shane West of TV's Once & Again) who seems to be on a road for disaster. Landon is stubborn and cynic which creates a rift between himself and Jamie at first. Landon's friends put down Jamie and insult her ways but she believes Landon is different.

Jamie also harbors a hidden secret that she is trying to protect. Will Landon ever open up to her? Will their love ever blossom? And if so, how will it be affected by Jamie's secret.

Directed by Adam Shankman (The Wedding Planner) and based on a novel by Nicholas Sparks you know at first that it has elements of being an entertaining love story. But what exactly happened to all that potential?

The film opens with a teen-hazing which drops us into what is going on within Landon Carter. The drama and intensity through this opening sequence is a wonderful setup for the film. The thing is that the rest of the film doesn't really support the opening.

The film goes into the high-school and it seems to lose all of its tone from the previous scene. We have your typical teen rebel making fun of the ugly girl with his friends and more typical teen settings. Before you know it Landon is chasing after the so-called ugly girl and some sort of romance starts to progress. I wasn't sure why these characters actually fell for each other. This is really weird and goofy pacing. What boggles me is why would the filmmakers do the romance so drastically and so quickly?

The goofy pacing and the sacrine-filled dialogue make this film laughable at times. And that makes it even harder for the audience to really get inside the mind of the characters.

I liked the emotional side of the Shane West character and there were isolated moments where I could relate to him.

I wasn't really that impressed with the performance of Mandy Moore. Her acting comes off a lot like her singing. She accents certain words with her lips and she has those goofy looks like in her music videos when she acts. The scene in the school play was way over the top and it oozed with way to much sugary-sweetness. What was with Moore's wardrobe and hair in this film? Through three-quarters of the film she wears clothing that looks like it was found on the set of Little House on the Prairie. Moore also sports quite an alarmingly bad dye job on her hair which seems to mutate and take over fellow co-star Daryl Hannah as well. I am not into hair but it's so blatantly obvious.

A Walk to Remember tries desperately to be an epic saddening romance for a teen audience but anybody above the age of 16 will see the gaping holes in the film. I did hear teenage girls as I left the theatre saying they have to run out and buy the book and even my 80 plus year old great-aunt was brought to tears through sections of the film. I am still baffled why the film brought out that kind of reaction in them.

(1 of 5) So Says the Soothsayer.