VALENTINE'S DAY (2010)

Look, kids! I'm being punk'd!

Well, you caught me. I saw this movie on the day New Line was hoping everybody would. That would explain the huge line up I faced getting there an hour early. Either way, I didn’t know what I would be in for as the trailer is relatively vague and the tagline literally said “A love story. More or less.” It doesn’t matter though, as the title might be enough. I was either walking into a movie with an all-star cast that was about each of them dealing with the pressures and expectations of Valentine’s Day, or I was walking into a movie about a character named Valentine and the crazy day he was about to have. For the record, it wasn’t the latter.

That all said, I didn’t regret seeing this film. There are movies out there like Up in the Air that you have to be in the mood to see, and movies like Avatar that you have to be in the mood to sit through. Then there are movies like Valentine’s Day that I’m glad I went and saw simply because it was fun.

Valentine’s Day has no one plot – it has several. Even then, they are mini plots that on their own couldn’t support an entire movie, although there are several movies out there that have tried. If I was to compare this film to any out there I would say it’s most like Paris, Je T’Aime or The Ten, which were both released in 2007 - except Valentine’s Day only used one director (unlike Paris) and all the stories intertwined in one way or another. Which is both a good and a bad thing.

The good comes from the fact that because we jumped through all the story lines as fast as we did you were kept entertained all the way through the 2 hour running time. Each story was intriguing and different enough that you never found yourself wanting more of one story over another, or waiting for one to be over in order to continue on with an earlier plot line. Director Gary Marshall (of Pretty Woman) did an excellent job balancing all the stories and keeping everything straight. The bad came from the fact the plotline were almost too intertwined to the point where it levelled on being a little ridiculous. Then again, it is a movie so it’s kind of a fun idea that your neighbour is also the person who is sleeping with your boss which is making your boss in turn happier and in the end getting you a promotion. So maybe it’s not a bad thing? That’s for you to decide as to whether or not it’s going to bother you (for the record that plot line was an example and it’s not actually in this film).

As for the cast and the acting – none of them will win an Oscar for their roles here. Valentine’s Day works like the Ocean’s series where the big names turn up for their parts simply because they want to get paid to have fun - which is definitely what all of them had, and that clearly shows on the screen. No actor is better over the other here, but it’s a nice representation of actors from the past (Shirley MacLaine, Hector Elizondo, Larry Miller) the present (Julia Roberts, Jamie Foxx, Kathy Bates) and the future (Bradley Cooper, Taylor Lautner, Taylor Swift [maaaybe]). And for the record, Taylor Swift wasn’t awful here, but I don’t think this was more than a flavour of the month thing or that she should take any starring roles too soon.

Valentine’s Day is a good dose of fun amidst all the more serious suff that’s out there right now. You won’t regret seeing it (even after Valentine’s Day) because fun is not a once a year thing and there should be more comedies like this and less like When in Rome. The door o’ love is open here, so jump into your swan boat and float down a river of fun performances and lots of laughs.
*Stills courtesy of New Line Cinema