Film Review – The Longest Ride

A film adaptation of a Nicholas Sparks novel has become a yearly tradition, with “The Longest Ride” arriving as the 10th production to use the author’s universe of romance and tragedy as inspiration. Not that any of these pictures are particularly good, but they’ve found an audience (well, most of them), and one that’s maintained a voracious appetite for Sparks’s rigid formula. “The Longest Ride” features love, loss, and North Carolina, making it nearly impossible to stand out from the pack. It’s a paint-by-numbers affair with an absurdly manipulative third act, barely managing to bring the heat with its mismatched co-stars. Perhaps the Sparks-faithful won’t mind, but they certainly deserve better. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com