Film review: 'Valentine’s Day' a mushy trash!

Film: Valentine’s Day
Cast: Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Shirley McClaine, Julia Roberts, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift
Director: Garry Marshall
Rating: * ½
 

Garry Marshall(Pretty Woman, Beaches) has given us some great romantic comedies but this Valentines Day offering is a disappointingly flat, unintentionally painful series of intertwining love stories , horribly clichéd and blatantly targeted at wooing-in the die-hard romantic. The A-list star cast doesn’t help either-far too many top-of-the-mind names with forgettable personas and very little to do!

Los Angelinos navigate their way through a potential minefield of
love, actually. It’s Valentines Day after all and they have to
showcase their love in all hues- flowers, gifts, cards, restaurants,
engagement rings etc are brought into play with a flourish but it’s
all forced and ungainly.

A woman(Garner) finds her lover(Dempsey) is a cheat, Florist(Kutcher) proposes to his girlfriend(Alba) but she’s not sure, a neurotic publicist(Biel) hits it off with a second string Sports presenter(Jamie Foxx), Teen couple (Emma Roberts, Carter Jenkins) plot to lose their virginity but Mom comes in the way, fellow plane-travelers (Cooper, Roberts)get talking and there’s a hint that theres more to come only to be deceived by an about turn, a yesteryear actress(Shirley Maclaine) confesses about her past indiscretion to her unsuspecting husband and an adult phone entertainer(Hathaway) falls for a mid-western hick(Grace).

Katherine Fugate’s script lacks warmth and the characters and their stories appear totally clichéd. Marshall, as helmer, appears to have been sleep-walking through the whole project. None of the characters appear interesting and the performances are all by rote. Obviously by the end of it all you are just relieved that it’s over!