VALENTINE'S DAY (2010)

2010 saw men's action movie fantasies realised with the the ensemble cast put together for The Expendables. Sly Stallone managed to bring together old school names Dolph Lundgren, Mickey Rourke, Eric Roberts and Jet Li, chuck in Steve Austin, the current hero Jason Statham and then sprinkle in cameos from Arnie and Bruce Willis. Sounded great, and on paper it looked like it would be an action packed, guilty pleasure treat. The problem was that it wasn't. It was all a bit of a mess and not nearly as much fun as it should have been.

I watched Valentine's Day last night (on Valentine's Day of course - I felt guilty for having scared my girlfriend witless with District 9) and realised that 2010 also saw an ensemble cast gathered for the ultimate rom-com. Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, Jessica Alba and Jennifer Garner are all there. The male quota is filled by Ashton Kutcher, Jamie Foxx, Patrick Dempsey, Bradley Cooper and Topher Grace who I'm sure they all have their tops off at some point. Oh and Kathy Bates for some reason, looking as though she's walked in off the street lost and not believing she's ended up in this film. All of this directed by Garry Marshall. Who else could be entrusted, other than the man responsible for Pretty Woman, The Princess Diaries and The Runaway Bride.



That is quite a cast list, not just in terms of bankability but also in terms of numbers. And there's more than that. This film has as incredible number of characters. So much so that a coherent narrative can't possibly be shoehorned into only 2 hours of film. The action jumps between different strands of the story as we meet all the characters, then revisit them in random order as it all plays out. There's a florist, a doctor, a sports journalist, a woman who does phone sex for a living. I lost track of it all to be honest and it doesn't really matter. None of it's complicated - you can dip in at anytime and know exactly whats happening, all because of the sheer cliche of it all. The other problem is that because of the huge number of people and amount of story lines involved, each tale is only really comprised of 4 or 5 scenes. It's hard enough to say anything meaningful and develop characters in this number of scenes at the best of times, but when the writing is this unimaginative and the acting this wooden, you really don't have a chance. Perhaps if Marshall decided to focus on one, or two at most, of the stories, he might have made a rom-com that didn't lack both romance and comedy.

All the film seems to be is a 2 hour advert for Clinton Cards and high street florists. The trouble is that a 2 hour advert has already been made by the British, only for Christmas instead. You may remember it - it was called Love Actually. It's impossible not to think of Richard Curtis' soppy ode to Christmas in London while watching Valentine's Day. LA is not as iconic and romantic as our capital in the snow and the characters supposedly 'portrayed' by Julia Roberts and co aren't nearly as amusing to watch than Bill Nighy for example.

It didn't offend me as much as Couple's Retreat did though. That film really insulted the intelligence of the viewer by thinking it was funny when it quite clearly wasn't. It had a smugness about it, something that only Vince Vaughn can exude. This film doesn't try to be particularly laugh out loud (when it does, it fails), it's just so schmaltzy....sometimes cringefully so.

I know that all of the above is particularly negative, but the main feeling I had afterwards was complete and utter indifference.  During the film I knew that it was completely rubbish and made me want to vomit, but now I've completely forgotten about it all, just 24 hours after the credits finally rolled.