Miley Cyrus tries to shed the Hannah Montana image in today's premiere of her new movie, "The Last Song."  Nothing against Miley, although I'm still ticked off at her for saying she's "scared" of country music, I think I'll wait for this one to come out on DVD...USAToday.com's Claudia Puig gives her review of the flick.

'The Last Song' is another chorus of Sparks' 'Dear John'

Both films -- the earlier released by Sony and this one by Disney's Touchstone Pictures-- come off as calculated attempts to milk the most box-office dollars from melodramatic material.

And given the success of films based on Sparks' books, like 2004's The Notebook, it's a shrewd move. Sparks wrote both the Dear John and The Last Song novels, but the new film is his first screenplay.

But at least those movies waited a respectful period for the original to get cold. The Last Song has much the same formulaic story as Dear John.

Miley Cyrus sulks and sneers her way through her first dramatic role. There is a modicum of chemistry between the rebellious Ronnie and the polite and ecologically minded Will (Liam Hemsworth). But, perhaps to hedge her shaky dramatic bets, about halfway through the movie, Cyrus bursts into song along with the radio. Hemsworth duly compliments her, lest we forget her claim to fame.

Ronnie has left New York reluctantly to spend the summer in Georgia with her estranged father, Steve (Greg Kinnear). She tends to walk around in a snit, ignoring his efforts to connect. A gifted pianist, she has stopped playing just to spite him. Miraculously, she has been awarded a scholarship to Juilliard, despite the concerns of her mother (Kelly Preston) that Ronnie barely graduated high school and "failed her SATs" -- a remarkable feat given that it's not a pass/fail test. But Sparks has never let realism get in the way of his trained focus on audience's tear ducts.

The overbearing sentimentality is leavened by Kinnear's grounded performance. Whether in a comedy (Little Miss Sunshine) or drama (Auto Focus), Kinnear lends intelligence and believability to his roles. When the story revolves around the romance, it's mostly predictable beach montages and goofy antics. But things improve when gears shift to probe Kinnear's character. His affability invests the sappy tale with some authenticity.

As in Dear John, a hunky blond guy and sassy girl meet cute on the beach. Both films contend with obstacles impeding the course of true love, fraught familial relationships, senseless tragedies, youthful criminality and life-threatening illnesses. All the obvious elements combine to manipulate the audience into a weepy time at the movies -- again.