"The Fault in Our Stars" isn't as bad as it might have been (considering the tastes of 13-year-old girls) but it's also not as good as I was secretly hoping it would be. You see, I'd just watched "Five Feet Apart", the movie that seemed an obvious cash-in (or even rip-off) of this one. That was actually somewhat emotionally affecting in places, whereas "Fault" surprisingly left me feeling not much of anything.

The pacing of the movie is strange, like it's moving too fast despite it also being over-long. The character of the love interest also seems undercooked. A lot of his dialogue feels overly written, where you keep wondering how he was able to come up with such finely honed paragraphs of speech so quickly. I believed, more or less, in the Sprouse character in "Five Feet". Teens in movies are always hyper aware of themselves, and Shailene Woodley was an ideal choice for her own contribution to pop culture alongside "Heathers" and "Daria". Ansel Elsort, though, just doesn't seem ready for it.

There are parts of the movie that work, such as the meeting with the writer, played by a great actor I won't reveal here. But then the movie goes to awkward territory, such as the two lovers sharing a make-out session in Anne Frank's house... to the applause of the tourists there. Eh? There was a reason why John Safran made out in her house for real, and that was for shock value. Why would people applaud?

I think they needed to go back to the drawing board with this one, and cut out some of the strange, extraneous material. And focus more on the central relationship, which despite being central to the story, feels secondary to it, like we already know they're going to fall in love, so they skip it and just get the show to Amsterdam as soon as possible.