Valentine's Day (2010)
Directed by Garry Marshall
Written by Katherine Fugate
Starring Jessica Alba, Patrick Dempsey, Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah, Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner
Release Date February 12th, 2010
Published February 14th, 2010
Garry Marshall, how do I loathe thee, let me count the ways. I have loathed every inch of film you have ever cut and print. Every word on the page of one of your scripts has been like a dagger in my chest. Your magnum opus Pretty Woman is one of the most loathsome, irresponsible and despicable fantasies ever crafted.
I still have nightmares of your attempt to make an S & M themed romantic comedy starring Dan Akroyd and Rosie O'Donnell. In all seriousness, which concentric circle of hell did you escape from? Mr. Marshall's latest bit of awfulness is arguably his most banal, rendered so by having so much star power you may be to blind to realize how you're being terrorized.
Valentine's Day is ostensibly about love and its many complications played out over the hallmark crafted Holiday. 20 or some odd number of characters each has an interconnected part to play in this series of failed single romantic comedies wrapped into one massive failure.
Among the glitterati to loan there sheen to Mr. Marshall's failed vision of comic romance are Ashton Kutcher as a flower shop owner and Jennifer Garner as, prepare for the surprising twist, the best friend he's always loved but didn't know it. He's just become engaged to Morley (Jessica Alba) who is carrying on an affair with her blackberry. Meanwhile the best friend is sleeping with a married man (Patrick Dempsey).
Don't worry, like all despicable married men in romantic comedies, he's leaving his fabulously wealthy wife and children to be with his poor school teacher mistress. I must say, I did marvel at Mr. Marshall's ability to cram that many well wrung clichés into one storyline.
There are several thousand other stars in Valentine's Day including Oscar winners (Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine), Oscar nominees (Anne Hathaway, Queen Latifah), TV stars (Eric Dane and Dempsey both from Grey's Anatomy, Kutcher and Topher Grace from That 70's Show) and even pop stars and Twilighters (Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner as the most vapid characters in an entirely vapid movie).
There are still countless other well known people in Valentine's Day but who really cares. At some point we in the audience belong to some weird version of Hollywood census takers, right down to the questions of demography as many characters are defined by their race in the most statistical of fashion.
To count the ways that Valentine's Day is offensive would actually take longer than my list of reasons for hating director Garry Marshall. The film isn't merely a recycling dump of romantic clichés; it's also a garbage dump of racial and sexual stereotypes. Oh. And don't even ask about sex because despite the theme, sex is purely something that exists the night before Valentine's Day and not the day of.
Ludicrously awful, Valentine's Day attempts to mask the odor of it's inanity with a traffic jam of celebrity. The pretty people wandering in and out of the 50 or so failed movies jammed into this one movie fails to distract from the sheer brainless insipidity of Valentine's Day.
