The Choice is another tired retread of Nicholas Sparks's favorite themes: good ol' Southern living, problematic women, and the specialness of love.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Aug 2, 2016

Sappy and corny, The Choice will either make you bawl your eyes out or dull you into a coma.

| Jun 21, 2016

The thing that's particularly galling about his latest installment, The Choice, is that the script seems to think it delivers a sophisticated and witty battle of the sexes.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Jun 10, 2016

Go back and re-watch Nick Cassavetes' vastly superior The Notebook.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 11, 2016

We the people deserve every nutty coincidence, beautiful disaster, luxurious grief montage, and supernatural final-act reveal. Garbage-entertainment is still entertainment. Why, then, does The Choice almost entirely opt out of its own game?

| Feb 8, 2016

You feel manipulated, but not in the I-can't-help-but-be-moved way that these films usually work. By the time its finale rolls around, The Choice has completely undone its own spell.

| Feb 6, 2016

The latest Nicholas Sparks adaptation may turn off even his most ardent fans.

| Original Score: 0/4 | Feb 5, 2016

Even when things take a turn, the movie doesn't become more complicated or interesting; we simply start down an equally predictable new track.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 5, 2016

The Choice feels like Mad Libs with some of Sparks' laziest clichs - a romantic rowboat, a colorful small-town carnival, a jealous upper-class boyfriend - and the result is a predictable, recycled mess.

| Original Score: C | Feb 5, 2016

As usual, love will be declared, tears will be shed, rain will fall, stars will be gazed at and dogs will be shamelessly anthropomorphized by their owners.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Feb 5, 2016

"The Choice" totally botches its central pairing, to the point where you might find yourself hoping the blandly irksome twosome fail to even get together.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 5, 2016

It's disappointing because - and maybe this is the true surprise - so much of the picture's first two-thirds are actually decent. I wouldn't call them good, but I'd call them watchable.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 5, 2016

We are told by a male narrator in a Forrest Gumpian drawl that "the whole damn thing is about choices," and that "every path you take leads to another choice," and that "some choices change everything." Jeepers.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 5, 2016

If you're looking for a reason to watch pretty people and cry, then, by all means, head to the theater. But it pales in comparison to other Sparks works, especially when it gets into medical-ethics territory.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 5, 2016

The surprises are not as surprising to us as they are to the characters. But there is something gentle about the story that is undeniably captivating.

| Original Score: B- | Feb 4, 2016

Some will eagerly dig in, while others are likely to find it too sticky and overly rich.

| Feb 4, 2016

The Choice is the cinematic equivalent of staring at a Hallmark Card for two hours.

| Feb 4, 2016

How many times, really, can someone repackage the same generic love story, presented with all the artistry of a travel-agency brochure and affixed with yet another third-act tragedy?

| Original Score: C- | Feb 4, 2016

There are no surprises here - okay, maybe one - and you can expect some light welling-up of the tear ducts and a few laugh-out-loud moments, sandwiched between corny dialogue and dramatic acts of love.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Feb 4, 2016

The only choice is to make sure a barf bag is nearby.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 4, 2016