Marked Men

This has always been one of my favorite books, and I'd been eagerly waiting for years for it to be turned into a movie. Unfortunately, the adaptation was a huge disappointment. Within just the first three minutes, I was already frustrated. The book's storyline was near perfect, and if I were the author, I'd feel completely betrayed by how they twisted and ruined it for the screen. I understand that adaptations don't always follow the source material exactly, but after this experience, I wouldn't bother watching any more adaptations of thesd books. I paused the movie so many times to text my friends about all the changes, and they all shared my frustration.

I suppose it's my own fault but when I saw this I thought it might be a gangster thriller. Nope, it's about the on-off relationship between tattoo artist "Rule" (Chase Stokes) and his friend "Shaw" (Sydney Taylor). She used to date his brother "Remy" but we quickly learn that he was involved in a car accident with his brother and so now we have our requisite dose of family baggage to explain why "Rule" is a bit of a commitment-phobe. Meantime, she is supposed to be dating millionaire drip "Gabe" (Michael Bradway) to keep her rather wealthy but venal mother sweet, but in the end it's her bit of rough that she really craves. Can they sort things out and get past his fear of being called her boyfriend? There's the odd bit of sensitively photographed sex and it does pay slight homage to the artistry of some creative tattooists but for the most part it's a weakly constructed romantic will they/won't they drama that didn't really engage me at all. There is plenty of eye-candy on offer, including from the sparingly used, wooden as a picket fence, Alexander Ludwig as his elder brother "Rome" and Ella Balinska tries to inject a little bit of life into things as her best pal "Ayden" but neither Stokes nor Taylor do anything like enough with the, admittedly pedestrian, script or the story to bring this to life. Quite how it got a general release in the UK is, as Yul Brynner might have said, "a puzzlement ". It looks good and there are a few power ballads to help it along, but it's really just a mediocre television movie, sorry.

I didn't read the books but it caught my attention that it was directed by Nick Cassavetes with a history of really good movies and his masterpiece of a love story such as "The Notebook", so I gave it a try. The story seemed it was intended to the teenage audience with traumas haunting them, insecurities, on and off relationships on which on of the partners serves as a therapist that only can take so much until the other side realizes they were wrong and try to mend things and get back together to live happily ever after. The project is filled with beautiful people that made me forget the lack of talent of some.

I probably really would've like this movie when I was 14. The story is straight out of the Wattpad 2013 handbook: the names, the angst, the manufactured dark backstory for the MMC, the cliche bff that does nothing other than live for the FMC to return home, and the characters that sound like they just learned how to cuss. I really wanted to like the movie if only to honor younger me, but older me was disappointed. For a 1.5 hour movie, it was watchable and I only picked up my phone a couple times. The movie writers could've used the books as a jumping off point and written the script with more substance. Perhaps my biggest gripe with the movie is its lack of using Alexander Ludwig to his fullest potential.

I just couldn't continue. It was horrible. And definitely not recommended if you like the books at all. I rented it to support Jay, but I would rather not have a movie than have one that's so different from the books we love. I'm not expecting a 1.5 hour movie to have everything from a 6-8 hour read, but I also wasn't expecting such a deviation. Character deviation, plot deviation, and not for the better.

The dialogue is absolutely asinine, there's so much cursing (like every other word) and very little substance. I should have read Reddit before purchasing, and I suggest you do too.

Those who gave any rating above a 3 must be bots or paid.