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RATING:   
SINGAPORE : In the film based on the best-selling Nicholas Sparks novel of the same name, Miley Cyrus plays Ronnie Miller, a musically-inclined rebellious teen sent to live with her equally musically-inclined estranged father (Greg Kinnear) for the summer. With help from Will Blakelee (Liam Hemsworth), aka The Resident Summer Romance, Ronnie picks up the pieces in an attempt to mend her relationship with her father before it's too late.
Cyrus is ridiculously angsty as the archetypal rebel in the first half-hour of the film - complete with Doctor Marten boots and the sourpuss pout. Overplayed and exaggerated, her emotional depth is largely made up of The Eye-roll, The Stare And Glare and The Gaze Of Longing. Thankfully, Cyrus does become significantly less annoying as the movie goes on, as does her character.
Hemsworth is more convincing as Cyrus' on-screen love interest, and the chemistry between the real-life couple is apparent. Kinnear also shines as Ronnie's cancer-stricken father, although the film ends with the audience's heartstrings strangely un-tugged.
"The Last Song" goes through all the motions of a typical Sparks movie, but don't expect the same genuine heartbreak as "The Notebook". Still, for a film filled with so much potential to crash and burn as yet another mind-numbingly bland teen flick, "The Last Song" is not nearly as painful as many would imagine.
- TODAY/ra
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