CinemaCynics.com

According to Ashton Kutcher’s character in “Valentine’s Day”, love is the only shocking act left on the planet. That being said, I think I’ve been punk’d.

The Players: Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Queen Latifah, Patrick Dempsey, Hector Elizondo, Emma Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, George Lopez, Kathy Bates, Topher Grace, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift, Carter Jenkins, Eric Dane, Bryce Robinson, Larry Miller, Paul Vogt, and Joe Mantegna (phew!)

The Director: Garry Marshall

THE GIST:

It’s February 14^th in the bustling metropolis of Los Angeles and love is in the air! Or is that just the smog? I’m not sure. Regardless, director Garry Marshall ("Pretty Woman," "The Princess Diaries") and screenwriter Katherine Fugate spin a series of intertwining tales regarding the joy and agony of love and the varied perceptions of Valentine’s Day. An indebted artist (played by Anne Hathaway), a busy florist (played by Ashton Kutcher), a promotion hungry sports journalist (played by Jamie Foxx), a lovesick elementary school teacher (played by Jennifer Garner), and a military mom (played by Marshall favorite Julia Roberts) are just a few of the characters whose love-lives cross paths with the many other characters.

THE JUDGMENT:

For me, watching “Valentine’s Day” was like going to Old Country Buffet for the first time. Initially, you see all these great entrees and side dishes lined up in an orderly fashion just for you. Look! There’s Julia Roberts! And there’s Bradley Cooper and Anne Hathaway! Ooh and that degenerate from the Nikon commercials! OMG! Taylor Swift? That’ll go well with Taylor Lautner! Excitement is ever present at the start of it all and you want to sink your teeth into this star-studded lineup. But once you start to chow down and get into the movie, you realize that all these seemingly delightful foodstuffs are rumbling in your belly as a monstrous hurricane of stomach acid. And, in the end, your eager giddiness morphs into nothing more than ferocious nausea.

But what is the cause of this cinematic stomachache?

The Painful Poison of Predictability

In any good romance movie, there has to be at least some degree of doubt as to whether or not a relationship will work out or not. With that being said, I can tell you that you definitely don’t need to do a great deal of sleuthing in “Valentine’s Day.” In fact, figuring out the relationship status of each character in the movie is like figuring out the culprit in a detective novel that has the solution written on every page. Every single story of every single character seems unoriginal and nothing is done to make a used story into something different and/or interesting. It’s almost impossible to root for anyone since the film is written in such a way that leaves nothing to the imagination.

The Appalling Absence of Any Good Humor (or AAAGH, for short)

Last time I checked, the objective of the romantic comedy was to make a movie involving some sort of romance with some comedy thrown in for…um…laughs? I think that’s it. And if I’m right about the objective of this genre, then “Valentine’s Day” cannot be considered a rom-com. By a slimmer margin than you might think, it deserves to be called a rom (although it came dangerously close to being a _____-_____). It’s clear that Fugate, the screenwriter, was trying to add some amount of humor. After all, why else would she have Oscar nominees Anne Hathaway and Queen Latifah spend their down time at the office snapping rubber bands into the telephone and cooing like a Ukranian call girl to dabble in the amateur phone sex business? Why else would she make seasoned actor Hector Elizondo point out that Moorpark spelled backwards is Kraproom? To help audiences practice their blank expressions? I don’t think so.

The Tardiness of the Interconnectivity

Another flaw is that the movie features this gigantic constellation of some of Hollywood’s brightest stars so that there would be enough characters to have an interconnecting storyline. However, the converging doesn’t really begin until about halfway through the second act. At times, there are little hints that some people might wind up meeting each other in the future. But, for the first 45 minutes or so, all you’re basically watching is just a bunch of separate stories that don’t have anything to do with one another, which makes for an unbelievably disjointed first act. Fortunately, the movie quickly began to have its characters cross paths and gain a bit of much-needed fluency at the end, which saved the plot from being a total debacle. 

Uneven Romantic Ratio 

By my count, the script of “Valentine’s Day” featured ten relationships. Of those ten, only three were compelling and interesting to watch. The romance between the older couple (MacLaine/Elizondo), the strangers on a plane (Roberts/Cooper), and the office couple (Hathaway/Grace) all contained scenarios (e.g. perfect strangers becoming good friends, a long-lasting relationship facing a serious matter after so long) that kept at least 30% of the film interesting and captivatingly dramatic. The remaining 70%, on the other hand, made Valentine’s Day look like less of a holiday and more like a good reason to stay single. The obstacles and embarrassment faced by each character in the majority of mediocrity was almost unbearable to watch as the smarmy, eye-rollingly ooey-gooey romantic end result.

Taylor Swift

Just as a side note, if you’re thinking about seeing “Valentine’s Day” because you’re a fan of singing sensation Taylor Swift and/or you want to witness her acting debut, then shame on you. The fact that Taylor Swift was granted multiple minutes of airtime as the clichéd, ditsy, irritating blonde girlfriend of the equally clichéd high school jock makes this film all the more contemptible.

Catch It, Rent It, or Skip It:

Save for a few good scenes with a few good couples, “Valentine’s Day” is a forgettable, mushy, badly written romance flick. Even with the heavily marketed all-star ensemble cast, all this movie deserves is a reservation at the bottom of the K-Mart discount DVD bin. Skip it.