Nicholas Sparks’ novels are so predictable that this latest film adaptation is its own spoiler.

It doesn’t even pretend to be suspenseful regarding the nature of the titular “choice,” since the poster and the first three minutes reveal pretty much everything you need to know.

But while one unsurprising choice is expected given the title, the movie contains another decision — never mind that the outcome of that choice is also never in doubt.

Main characters Travis Parker (Benjamin Walker) and Gabby Holland (Teresa Palmer) start out as neighbors and “wind up in a relationship that is tested by life’s most defining events,” according to IMDb’s synopsis. 

Fair warning: “Life’s most defining events” are shoehorned into an overloaded and drawn-out final act, and what precedes them is just more of the same from Sparks. This movie include lines like: “A man with one chair likes to sit alone,” and similar schlock that lands hilariously and has all the depth of Bryan Adams’ single.

The movie is filmed, naturally, in the quaint southern town of Whiteville, North Carolina, as the American South is the only setting in which Sparks can include scenes in the rain against drooping weeping willows, southern belles and guys with that “aw shucks” drawl. Unlike a truer representation of the South (or the rest of reality for that matter), all of the ladies are also thin and gorgeous and hang out in low-cut sun dresses, bikinis, or just plain T-shirts and panties for the bulk of the movie. Meanwhile, the guys are charming, tan, shirtless models. 

The first and more obvious choice (spoiled on the poster) is presented as Gabby finds herself in a real first-world boggle between two good looking, successful doctors — poor thing! 

Gabby comes from old money, with her own horses and a small golf course on her property. She’s the new nurse in town, and she’s in demand, as Dr. McCarthy (Brett Rice) keeps telling her. But it turns out he may be biased, since Gabby’s present beau is his son, fellow well-to-do doctor Ryan McCarthy (Tom Welling).

But her new neighbor happens to be Travis, who is the town vet. Travis owns a house by the water, and to no one’s shock, boy do they annoy each other! Travis is a good ‘ol beer drinkin’, red meat grillin’ southern boy who owns a boat (which he uses to help his buddies avoid their gorgeous wives and precocious kids).

But good-looking and successful Travis has it rough, too. With no wife or kids to avoid, he spends time with his beloved dog and the belles in bikinis he woos from the deck of his boat, and now and again with beautiful Monica (Alexandra Daddario), who is somehow a consolation prize.

After some 80 minutes of the obligatory Sparks’ tripe, Gabby eventually chooses Travis over Ryan, just as the synopsis, the poster and the first three minutes revealed. The second (non)choice is Travis’ to make. Don’t worry about keeping up: Travis announces via voiceover that he has a choice to make during a scene in which, flowers in hand, he goes to visit Gabby at the hospital, where the leading lady is a patient. (And who would have thunk it! Gabby’s ex, Ryan, happens to be her doctor. Will these crazy coincidences never cease?)

If you can’t immediately guess that Travis’ big “choice” not only has something to do with Gabby’s life (which obviously hangs in the balance), but with how his own will all turn out, then this movie was made especially for you.

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CRITIC RATING: One and a half stars

MPAA RATING: Rated PG-13 for sexual content and some thematic issues. 111 minutes.