Dear John / We are in the movie doldrums. During this period, roughly three weeks before the Oscar ceremonies are held on March 7, the industry dumps all its iffy movies practically at once.

Not lousy movies, mind you–just ones that didn’t work out so well in terms of marketing and genre. Y’know, so-so Travolta crime capers, Robin Williams dogs, limp romcoms, and overly-derivative actioneers. The industry often refers to these concoctions as McMovies, the film equivalent of fast food. Occasionally, one or two of these catches on, as in the case of Dear John, a stately movie about passion, which dethroned Avatar this week as the No. 1 attraction in the country.

Based on yet another novel by Nicholas Sparks, who discovered his inner best-seller early in his career, and keeps churning them out. These are usually wispy, swoony stories made to be turned into weepy movies about deferred love, interrupted love, (nearly) doomed love, et al.

You know the drill: the stories pimp genuine human concerns–love, family, death, autism, cancers, letter writing and coin collecting–into almost totally inauthentic experiences for inexperienced or ultra-romantic audiences. They’re largely toy movies, prettily photographed and usually filled with narrative over songs performed tenderly by genteel songsters.

So it is with Dear John, a movie about a soldier who receives, yes, a Dear John letter from a young lady he loves dearly, and who he thought loved him to pieces. However, this is soon after 9/11, and he chooses to re-enlist rather than stay with her. She ends up marrying a terminally-ill guy.

The struggling pair are played, if that is the word, by a couple of on-the-rise performers who have no chemistry at all on screen. These beautiful people stare at each other like two Lamborghinis blinking their headlights at each other. This is a passionless movie in which beauty must pass for passion, in the pop-culture manner. The female is played by Amanda Seyfried (late of Mamma Mia!), a lemur-eyed ingénue who looks rather like the love-child of Calista Flockhart and Peter MacNicol. The guy, John himself, is played by hunk-du-jour Channing Tatum (Fighting) in a performance smacking of wooden stoicism. When called upon to weep, Tatum covers his face with his hands and turns away from the camera just slightly.

Tatum, who shows promise (with his shirt off), is not yet comfortable in front of the camera unless he’s brawling, but he’s like the movie he’s in: not bad, exactly, just not very good. This sort of genre movie works only if real chemistry is there, and it just ain’t. Tweens might buy it, though.

The movie is so manipulative that bright people might feel insulted, and so mechanical that it defies credibility. The couple is so touchy they look like visiting royalty; the slightest comment turns them to anger, as resultant conflict keeps the plot going.

Extra character touches among the helpless supporting cast are introduced but never fully developed–or edited out. The great Richard Jenkins (The Visitor), a recent nominee for a Best Actor Oscar, has a part as John’s possibly autistic father, a valuable-coin collector who develops one of those mysterious movie diseases that began with Love Story and haven’t stopped yet.

Hollywood has been making sappy love stories forever, and, if the main characters are talented enough, these movies, once called weepers, are a kind of staple. This one might advance the careers of its two stars, but that doesn’t mean you have to pay your $9.50 for tickets, top-volume ads and concessions that begin at around $6. Our traditional movie industry is setting itself up for a fall–unless Dear John 3-D, probably on the way, can send amorous gestures comin’ at us.

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