In Theatres: Valentine's Day

"Valentine's Day" directed by Gary Marshall, features an all star cast of today's A-List celebrities. The premise is simple: the movie follows the stories of a bunch of people in LA on Valentine's Day, a romcom of the ups and downs of love. The movie was the right blend of saccharine and superficial.

The best parts of this movie were when the characters actually had chemistry. It was wonderful to see Julia Roberts return to the big screen, and she connected well with Bradley Cooper. Her story as a soldier returning home was a little difficult to believe at first (Julia, a soldier?) but she managed to make the character worthwhile. Jennifer Garner always manages to be youthful, cute, and warm at the same time. And her role was different for her, as the other woman. I despise Taylor Swift, but she got the most laughs in the theatre, deservedly so, as the ditsy high schooler. Julia's niece Emma showed a lot of promise as an actress, playing a more sanitized version of Juno. Rounding out the better part of the cast was the beautiful Jessica Biel, whose scenes were hilarious (especially when she was on her treadmill and it sped up while she tried to get the phone, classic romcom!).

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This movie would have been better had the film been a series of vignettes rather than drawing out the story lines. The cast was so massive that some of the characters got lost along the way. Each story focused on a different type of relationship, at a different stage, so it would have made for a better movie to have gone from the high schoolers to the old married couple, in self contained short films.

The major drawback of this film was the storyline about the little boy. I am completely disgusted by love sick kids in movies. First, kids don't have the hormones yet to be attracted to people. Second, why the hell to people think it's so darn cute? NO! It's just creepy. I wish Jennifer Garner (who played the boy's teacher) would have acted more appropriately creeped out when he was hitting on her, as she could lose her job a la Mary Kay Laterneau. Plus, aren't kids falling in love so cliche?!

Jamie Foxx' ego is so big that it dominates everything he's in, including this movie. Eric Dane, though funny in this movie, isn't exactly an A-List star. Jessica Alba's and Patrick Dempsey's characters were thoroughly unlikeable. And though Shirley McLaine gave a great performance, her character was unlikable too.

The best story lines were between Anne Hathaway and Topher Grace as a young couple who were dating for just two weeks, Taylor Launter and Taylor Swift as the high school airheads, Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper on the plane, and Jennifer Garner and Ashton Kutcher as two friends who don't realize they love each other yet.

This wasn't a perfect movie. The characters were undeveloped (there were just far too many to give them much focus, especially Queen Latifah) and the story was disconnected. However, a few hours after seeing the movie I realized I was in a good mood, and if anything, a movie such as this should do just that.