Review of Valentine's Day

2/4

Valentine's Day is a romantic comedy with an ensemble cast directed by Garry Marshall. First of all, there are a lot of things wrong with this movie. I'm going to start by talking about the movies that did this kind of ensemble love story better. This movie is kind of a ripoff of Love Actually, the movie that started it all. This is what people said about He's Just Not That Into You before it came out. However, He's Just Not That Into You turned out to a alright movie that was actually very original. Valentine's Day, however, shared many similarities to Love Actually and was filled with romantic comedy cliches. I knew what was going to happen to every single one of the characters except two who turned out to be a surprise couple in the end. The movie made a big mistake by trying to cram all these cliche-filled storylines in a movie. To make up for this, the movie was filled with lots of big name stars. There were 21 in total, some more minor than others. All of these actors were very good, but we didn't get to see much of any them. I have to admit it was the star-studded cast that drew me in, but it was the movie's ultimate downfall. Having so many characters and storylines, the movie could not develop either very far. Valentine's Day definitely could've cut several subplots to show us more of the ones we wanted. The biggest example is Taylor Swift and Taylor Lautner's subplot. Literally nothing happened in this subplot. At first, it seemed like Lautner's character was feeling underappreciated, but nothing happened. In fact, Garry Marshall wrote this subplot in the movie just for Swift, but I really wish he didn't to save Taylor some embarrassment. Taylor played an awful character who she couldn't do much with. She was overacting at times and didn't seem believable. I still love her and all, but she really should've skipped out on this gig. Another subplot is with Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper. The scenes for this one were very brief. Even though the ending to this one was very touching and some of the best parts of the film, it really wasn't necessary. For some reason though, Julia Roberts was paid $500,000 per minute for this film, meaning she got roughly $3 million for about 6 minutes of screen time. Now, that is ridiculous. Swift's last minute subplot and Roberts' top dollar salary are some of the things that make me think that Garry Marshall was just trying to get as many stars as possible in one movie. There were definitely several actors that could've had their screen time reduced. Jessica Alba didn't need to show up in the film after her character walks out on Ashton Kutcher's character. Also, Eric Dane was probably only added to the film, so McSteamy could share the big screen with McDreamy. Garry Marshall has made some of the best romantic comedies ever, but he really messed this one up by mashing all these subplots and characters together only to compliment the number of big name stars. The only reason I was so generous with the rating is that Valentine's Day is a very entertaining film at times. There was plenty of fun moments as well as touching ones. All I can say is that Love Actually is still the king of ensemble love stories, and I really recommend it if you want to see how it is done.