Not even bad in a good way

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Another in, at this point, long line of lunk-headed plots from the mind of Nicholas Sparks becomes another forgettable film based on his assembly line of novels. Hero (ine) w/a troubled past, check. Impossibly attractive couple meet cute somewhere down south, check. Soundtrack that spells everything out underlying every feeling & emotion on screen, check. Safe Haven reminds me of a Southpark episode where they derided Family Guy's plot ideas as being randomly picked by manatees. One wonders if Mr. Sparks has an investment in manatees.

It's called 'Safe Haven' and everything about the film screams 'safe' - safe filmmaking, safe casting, safe music. All creative decisions are so bland and 'non-threatening' that the film has no real character. It's watchable, but completely unengaging and you simply don't care what's happening. Avoid.

Angels? Really?!!The film mixes domestic abuse - a real issue which is a serious societal problem - with fantastical whimsy of a sort that, to put it kindly, has a negligible relationship with this particular plane of existence, at best...That's cheap, even for Nicholas Sparks. Cheap, mawkish, tacky and tawdry.

This is a great movie. The actors, including those that played the kids, are fabulous. The portrayals of abuse are realistic and really well played, and they really drew me in. It does have a bit of a kooky ending, which I didn't appreciate the first time I saw it, but it didn't bother me after that. (I have now seen this several times.) Definitely a keeper, and a very sweet film.