As I wrote in my review for New York, I Love You, anthology films can be a mixed bag filled with hits and misses. That isn’t the case with Valentine’s Day, it is a complete and utter miss.
An American knockoff of Love Actually, Valentine’s Day was written by Katherine Fugate (creator of the Lifetime soap Army Wives) and directed by Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman). The film stars a litany of well known actors in a series of storylines set in L.A. and revolving around the titular holiday. The whole thing feels like someone threw together a bunch of half-formed ideas from the cookie cutter bin of rom-com concepts because they couldn’t flesh them out into feature length.
Ashton Kutcher is the central character, a florist who gets dumped by his fiancée, Jessica Alba. His best friend, Jennifer Garner, is dating a doctor (Patrick Dempsey), who turns out to be married. Jessica Biel is a sports agent who bonds with Jamie Foxx, a news reporter, over their mutual distaste for Valentine’s Day. Topher Grace works as a mail room clerk in Biel’s office and begins dating the receptionist, Anne Hathaway, who secretly doubles as a phone sex operator. Julia Roberts is an Army captain who shares a plane seat with Bradley Cooper.
The over bloated cast also includes: Julia’s niece Emma, Hector Elizondo, Shirley MacLaine, Queen Latifah, Eric Dane, Kathy Bates, and Joe Mantegna.
The Taylors, Lautner and Swift, also appear as a couple of high schoolers in love. They’re good-looking, bubbly, and empty headed. That pretty much sums up the entire movie. Everybody in the movie is hot, rich, and somehow keep managing to bump into each other. The interconnected contrivances are a lot like Crash, except with romance instead of racism. They all live in some fantasy world version of Los Angeles completely lacking in traffic, crime, or racial diversity. In Valentine’s Day, the only Mexican in L.A. is George Lopez.
Rating: *
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