Valentine's Day

The problem with Garry Marshall's Valentine's Day is that the planning pretty much ended once the all-star cast was assembled. Once they got all these stars signed on, the studio probably figured they were in the clear. They obviously didn't care about the script, which is often contrived, predictable, and not as romantic as it seems to think it is. It's stuffed with too many characters, and too many that don't make any impression whatsoever. Which means that only a small handful of the celebrities in this over-stuffed cast have anything to do.

The film is a collection stories that are all tied around Los Angeles on Valentine's Day. The characters in these stories sometimes cross over into other plots, but for the most part, we're supposed to get the feeling that we're watching a bunch of short stories that all take place during a 24 hour period. It's a gimmick, mainly, and that's just the problem. It never turns out to be anything more than that. Some filmmakers (like the late Robert Altman) could successfully pull off a concept like this, and make it work. But Garry Marshall is known for doing entertaining fluff like Pretty Woman. Here, he seems to be at a loss at how to juggle all these characters and plot lines. Some are emphasized over others, and some characters and storylines are barely touched upon to the point that we wonder why they're even there in the first place. It doesn't help that amongst the film's multiple storylines, there's not a single one that stands out, or doesn't feel generic. We never get to care enough about any of the characters, since it's always cutting away to someone else before too long. Because of this, we quickly become bored with the film's structure, and start looking at our watches.

The main plot in Valentine's Day (or at least the one that gets the most attention) concerns a happy young florist named Reed (Ashton Kutcher), who just proposed to his girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba) that very morning. His wise friend and business partner, Alphonso (George Lopez), however, has his doubts if Reed and Morley are meant to be. His advice? Reed should marry his best friend, who just happens to be a sunny elementary school teacher named Julia (Jennifer Garner). But, she's involved with an unfaithful doctor named Harrison (Patrick Dempsey), who is secretly married and has a kid. Elsewhere, a TV sports reporter named Kelvin Moore (Jamie Foxx) is forced to do an on the street report on what people think about Valentine's Day, and ends up getting a big scoop on a football quarterback (Eric Dane). There's also the story of Liz (Anne Hathaway) and Jason (Topher Grace). They recently started dating, and she doesn't know how to tell her new boyfriend that she's a phone sex operator. Also thrown into the mix are two people (Bradley Cooper and Julia Roberts) who strike up a friendship during a plane flight, an elderly couple (Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine) who discover their relationship is not perfect as their 50th wedding anniversary approaches, a teenage couple (Carter Jenkins and Emma Roberts) contemplating having sex, another teenage couple (Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift) lost in young love, a woman (Jessica Biel) who worries that no one will come to her "I Hate Valentine's Day" party, and a little boy (Bryce Robinson) dealing with his first crush.

Of the many plots, the ones that probably should have been cut all together are the two concerning the teen couples, as they go absolutely nowhere to begin with, and seem to be thrown in at random to remind us that these actors are in the movie, also. Aside from these two completely pointless vignettes, the other stories seem to be constantly elbowing each other out of the way in order to compete for our attention. Out of all of them, the one that seems to have the most promise is the one between Hathaway and Grace. They're likable, and you wish they could have a full movie to themselves, so they could flesh out their characters. The one with the two strangers on the plane is pretty good as well, and has a nice ending, but once again, the actors never get to go as far with these characters as we would like them to. There are hints at chemistry here and there, but then the movie keeps on cutting to stuff that doesn't work at all, which sends us crashing back down to reality. The problems seem to vary with each story. Some are not as strong as they could be (that would be the one concerning the elderly couple questioning their faithfulness to each other), some suffer from the standard Idiot Plot (the center storyline about the florist torn between two women), and some are just completely pointless to begin with and are wasting our time (the one concerning Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner).

Because of the loose structure and uncertain tone of Valentine's Day, none of the actors get to truly stand out in their roles. Everybody's passable, but nobody gets to rise above the material. Some of the actors (like Jennifer Garner, Topher Grace, and Anne Hathaway) manage to get by on their screen presence alone. While others (like Jessica Alba or Patrick Dempsey) make no impression whatsoever. And then there are actors like Kathy Bates and Queen Latifah, who are stuck in such minor roles, it's easy to forget they're even in the movie in the first place. The movie also struggles to find any laughs. The one time I did chuckle was when the movie took a subtle swipe at Taylor Lautner's Twilight role. (He tells a reporter he's uncomfortable taking his shirt off in public.) Other than that, it's a dead zone of predictable gags, one-liners that fall flat, and two different dogs who exist solely to give reaction shots to what the characters around them are saying or doing. Having one "reaction shot dog" in a comedy is a sign of desperation. Having two means you're not even trying.

Of course, none of this matters. Valentine's Day will make a killing at the box office, thanks to the heavy promotion, the starry cast, and the fact that it's the only romance-themed movie opening this weekend. The studio will make their money, and most people will forget this movie ever existed in a few months. The question becomes just imagine how much more money this movie would have made if it was actually a good script worthy of the talent it attracted. Heck, it might have helped the movie have big weekends beyond the holiday it's named after. Couldn't hurt, is all I'm saying.

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