Despite many famous faces, ‘Valentine’s Day’ disappoints

“Valentine’s Day” is a prime example of a “flash in the pan” film. It has what it needs in order to attract a fair audience, but like the holiday from which it garners its title, all the excitement disappears as soon as it’s over. Now, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a bad movie. In fact, it is quite passable as a solid date movie for anyone who’s curious about it. My only concern is that when people walk out of the theater, they’re probably going to drive home pondering over how popular the cast is without really caring about whether or not all of them clicked as one.
Built on a structure of endless criss-crossing storylines, the film chronicles pretty much anything that can be done in terms of celebrating love or moping the lack thereof in one whole day. For the sake of letting it be a fresh glimpse, I won’t spoil any specific details, but at the center of all the intertwining romance is a florist named Reed (Ashton Kutcher) who is about to propose to his girlfriend (Jessica Alba).
A lot of the scenes take place in his shop as people come in and out to purchase flowers, but in the midst of all the drama, we have two high school teens who are ready to have sex, an elderly woman who had an affair long ago but never told her husband, a phone-sex operator, and a love therapist played by Kathy Bates who barely has time to do anything worthwhile. Come to think of it, none of these people do. And it’s really sad because most of them have already proven themselves to be very talented.
I’m not sure if it was a fair trade of talent or a scam to sell more tickets, but “Valentine’s Day” is one of those movies where you know just from the poster that pre-production was the hardest part of the equation. If I had to guess, I’d say that when early meetings took place, it was more important to balance the budget on personal paychecks; which would explain why the set designs look so cheap. And if you think a bunch of big-star celebrities can save an entire film by just being in it, you are sadly mistaken. The reason I can’t be too hard on the cast though is because it’s not their fault if they’re doing what the director tells them.
“Valentine’s Day” is, in short, a mess. There are just too many pale characters, too many vague plot lines, and too many conversations centered on the meaning of love. I guess if one can relate to any of the various pieces to the puzzle, then it’s fair to assume that the film has something for everyone; even if we know that all those heart-shaped boxes of chocolates will be half off by midnight. Wait. … does this mean that ticket prices will drop after the fourteenth?

Posted by Chris Moskaly on Feb 12 2010. Filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry