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Valentine’s Day seems to be more about quantity than about quality. It tries to fit as many story-lines and A-list movie stars in two hours as possible resulting in what is kind of a showcase of shorts of which most of them aren’t that interesting. Which is a shame as there is some significant talent in the movie, but sadly underused. The fact that the trailer mostly consisted of listing the stars should say something about the captivating story that is clearly not to be found in this movie.
I could go on and give a quick rundown on all the separate story-lines, but there’s too many and they’re too uninvolving because each story-line has only 10-15 minutes max and uses part of that time to connect to the other story-lines to create a bigger picture. Some of these ’shorts’ could have been very good full length movies, but now it all feels rushed. There is no emotional impact in these story-lines. Even one whose conclusion has been build up to for the finale and functions as a twist on two story-lines falls kind of flat. But the biggest problem I had was that there were people in the movie that had no business being in the movie in the first place.What was the point of Taylor Lautner having a segment? He doesn’t have a story-line at all, yet he’s here pretending he has one. Same goes for Queen Latifah who has nothing but an extended cameo.
There are some funny bits, including a cute kid that is one of those witty kids you only see in movies and television shows. The girls will probably drool on both Grey’s Anatomy’s McDreamy and McSteamy and a couple of other men in the cast. The guys get Jessica Alba, Anne Hathaway, Jennifer Garner and more but there are never any sexy scenes. Unless a foul mouthing Anne Hathaway turns you on.
It’s amazing how so much talent creates such a shallow movie. Sometimes bigger isn’t necessarily better.
