'The Vow' promises to woo the weekend's biggest audience

In advance of Valentine's Day this Tuesday, The Vow will make its debut in 2,958 theatres. Both Rachel McAdams (The Notebook) and Channing Tatum (Dear John) have anchored a dramatic romance before, and it appears they'll lead the movie to a $30 million finish. Although certainly many couples will see the romance together, it will be equally attractive to groups of girlfriends, who were the main demographic at the advance screening I attended. McAdams stars as a woman who loses all memory of her husband (Tatum) after her car accident. She turns back to her previous life, and he tries to woo her all over again. Unlike McAdams's previous memory-loss tale, The Notebook, The Vow is nothing special, "a mash-up of hoary clichés, "as our critic David Noh says. Still, he couldn't help but be drawn in by the chemistry between the two stars and the "nigh-irresistible emotional drive."

One of the least-liked movies in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode I-- The Phantom Menace (2,655 theatres) will release in 3D, Jar-Jar Binks and all. Fox is putting a $20 million estimate on its weekend total, predicting that the sci-fi (spawn of a) classic will attract fathers and sons. That would put the 3D re-release in the "strong" category, though it would still fall short of The Lion King 3D's $30 million opening last September.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (3,470 theatres) dumped star Brendan Fraser for Dwayne Johnson. Didn't a similar thing happen with the Mummy franchise?  "Even kids will be shaking their heads" at the "daffy update of the Jules Verne novel," critic Daniel Eagan reports. Though the filmmakers try to "quickly and slyly...skim over mere logic," he thinks most viewers will eventually realize all the fantastical setups "make no sense." With competition from family audiences seeing The Phantom Menace, Journey 2 will have an uphill battle. A number in the teen millions will be likely.

Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds band together for Safe House (3,118 theatres), which our critic Chris Barsanti felt was a Tony Scott knockoff. It centers on a CIA agent (Reynolds) tasked with keeping a maybe-rogue agent (Washington) safe, until they both come under assault. The 'two unlikely people banding together' thing has been done dozens of times, and Barsanti also felt that the (maybe spoiler alert) idea of moles at the top of an organization was something he could see coming miles away. Universal has been targeting males for the thriller, which could earn over $20 million if everything pulls together.

For those trying to catch up on all the Oscar-nominated films, Sony Pictures Classics is releasing In Darkness (1 theatre), the Polish film that is one of the five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. The Holocaust-set drama centers on Polish Jews who hide in a sewer, helped by a man whose financial motivations threaten to imperil the people he's hiding. In this story, neither the Jews nor the people who are hiding them are saints. "The characters are...wisely presented with all their flaws, passions and virtues, not idealized as victims," critic Wendy R. Weinstein praises. Like many films showing dark chapters of history, "It is not easy to watch, but it is impossible to turn away."

The films that end up on top this weekend will be well-poised to reap the benefits next weekend, which has the Monday President's Day Holiday and the prospect of weekday ticket sales among select groups of schoolchildren lucky enough to have a mid-winter break.