Watching Valentine’s Day reminded me of a Hollywood High School reunion; there are a lot of familiar and beautiful faces of people you are happy to see, but several of them are people whose names you cannot remember. Unfortunately, with all of the expensive invited guests to this reunion, the budget for this movie had to far exceed its income. Despite the studded star power, word does travel fast, and once initial viewers took in its unoriginal screenplay that was a poster child for cliché dialogue, I am certain they dissuaded their friends from wasting their money on the price of admission.

Early on, after we’ve learned that Reed (Ashton Kutcher) has proposed to a beautiful blonde, and she said yes (although the viewer knows that is not going to last), and after we’ve met the cheating, but good-looking Dr. Copeland (Patrick Dempsey), we are introduced to the third leg of this stool, Julia Fitzpatrick (Jennifer Garner), Reed’s best friend. At Reed and Julia’s first encounter, most viewers will easily guess where this plot is headed. “It’s things like that which can turn someone that you like into someone that you love.”

Many of the subplots such as an encounter between seatmates Holden (Bradley Cooper) and Captain Kate Hazeltine (Julia Roberts) during a long plane ride where the stewardess mistakes them for a couple, that of Kelvin (Jamie Foxx), the low-down sports reporter who is sent on assignment to find out how the man/woman/child-on-the-street spends his or her Valentine’s Day, and star-football player Sean Jackson (Eric Dane) who is deciding whether to retire from his career, add nothing to the screen that the viewer has not already seen before. Bad acting by an adorable child star, Bryce Robinson, and music star Taylor Swift just serve to increase the movie’s lack of appeal.

Although I would say it was worth attending this reunion just to see all of the familiar faces, the story itself was a disappointment. Save for a few twists at the end – who has Julia Roberts traveled all this way to see? What does the football player tell his adoring fans? I would say that one of the first lines of the movie sums it up the best, “It’s Valentine’s Day. You don’t think; you just do.”

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Created Jun 11, 2010 at 9:30am • Submit your own review...