Review: Valentine's Day (2010)

[Tim Skirvin]

  There were few bright spots as I was forced to sit through
_Valentine's Day_ last night.  The best I came up with was finding ways to
make the movie better - perhaps an impossible task, but hey, I was really
stretching.  I came up with two reasonable ideas:

  1.  We have both McDreamy and McSteamy (from Grey's Anatomy - no, I
don't know their real names [yes, I watched that show for too long]) in
this movie; why don't we hook them up?  That'd be awesome!

  2.  When Julia Roberts is returning to her seat on the plane to
L.A., there's a significant amount of unexplained turbulence.  Can we please
crash the plane into the city and kill everybody involved?  A mix of _Escape
from LA_ and _Magnolia_ would be significant step up...

  But no.  This was a movie of romantic comedy clichÃ(c)s, not
subversion slash or disaster movies.  The most subversive element was an
Indian Shotgun Wedding; the most disastrous element was the waste of good
talent.  And so I was left with one of the most painful pieces of film I've
seen in years.

  _Valentine's Day_'s premise - "how many A- and B-list actors can we
fit in a romantic comedy?" - clearly overrode any other considerations that
the creators might have come up with.  The movie of a dozen or so
five-minute romantic comedies stuffed together and loosely connected by a
ten-minute romantic comedy.  Each of these plots wastes two or more talented
and/or popular actors, who only have their looks and/or reputation to rely
upon to display a character.  Only one of the plots involves anything even
vaguely unpredictable; none of the characters go through anything
resembling character growth, most don't even show much personality in the
first place, a few "plots" never even have a plot introduced, and a couple
(Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah) don't even have an associated love interest.
It was almost as if they came into the game too late, and just needed to be
stuffed in somehow.

  The movie's implementation was nearly as bad.  The movie jumped
frenetically from plotline to plotline, introducing secondary characters
from time to time that were more interesting than the main plots.  Romantic
comedy clichÃ(c)s were generally elided to save time; given that there *was*
no other plot, this was especially egregious.  Thematic integration points
between the sub-plots were ignored.  Any visual themes that might have been
interesting in a longer movie were lost by being caught up in the sheer
mess that was playing elsewhere.  And the writing...  dear Gods, the
writing...

  Interestingly, it was the fact checking that I found the most
egregiously bad.  Perhaps a minor point for most people, it bothered me that
nobody looked at a calendar and spotted the fact that Valentine's Day falls
on a Sunday this year.  This movie clearly takes place in 2010, and more
clearly takes place on a weekday (there are kids in school, work is in
session, etc).  Perhaps it's just that I know that things would have had to
*change* if the movie had been in a different year, but...  

  Romance?  Oddly, I'd argue there wasn't any.  There were break-ups;
there was the occasional realization that two characters "had always been
in love"; and there were Grand Revelations.  Past that, we merely had the
time to glimpse people that were, purported, already in love.  

  Comedy?  I could swear that some of the audience (made up of 70%
teenage girls) laughed a couple of times, but I honestly couldn't tell you
when that happened.  I certainly didn't laugh, or gasp, or respond with some
low kind of pity.  

  Was there anything worthwhile?  Well, I saw it with a dear friend;
that was nice.  And while she didn't hate the movie as much as I did, she
also didn't get upset when I ranted about it on the way back.  Score one for
Eva.

  Yeah, that's about it.  Avoid this movie.

  * - or, more accurately, BOMB

  Postscript 1: I suppose that it's fair to point out that I am not a
fan of romantic comedies, and that my score probably reflects this.  In my
defense, there are definitely romantic comedies that I respect and,
shockingly, even like - _Love, Actually_ comes to mind.  This movie,
however, was an embarrassment.  

  Postscript 2: when the trailers come on, I highly recommend closing
your eyes and ears for _Date Night_, the vehicle for Tina Fey and Steve
Carell.  The movie's only chance might be surprise as to the premise; and
the trailer ruined that for me.

                           - Tim Skirvin (tskirvin at killfile.org)
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