Valentine’s Day (2010)

There’s an old Tin Pan Alley story that someone challenged Cole Porter, the foremost creator of witty in-song banter of his day, to write a hit a song called “I Love You.” The idea was that the title was just too head-on to make it work. Mr. Porter, a betting man, decided he would up the ante by filling the song with as many cliché lyrics about the many-splendored thing as he could unearth. And it was a hit.

Apparently, Garry Marshall and Katherine Fugate, the director and writer of Valentine’s Day are also the betting types. What other explanation could there be for a film as transparently named, tied to a release date, rife with product placement opportunities, and chock-full of A-list celebs as this one is? Honestly, you know a movie’s overloaded with stars when the opening credits appear in alphabetical order, so that of the two Robertses that appear in the film, Emma gets a higher billing than her superstar aunt.

The story revolves around Siena Flowers, a Los Angeles florist owned and operated by love-fool Reed Bennett (Ashton Kutcher). The movie opens on the morning of February 14, Reed’s busiest day of the year but that doesn’t stop him from proposing to his workaholic girlfriend Morely (Jessica Alba) before he heads off to work. Everyone in his life – including his right-hand-man Alphonso (George Lopez) and best friend Julia (Jennifer Garner) – is shocked when she actually says yes.

It’s not because Julia, an adorable grade-school teacher, is cynical about love. She thinks she’s found her Mr. Right in a smooth-talking cardiologist named Harrison (Patrick Dempsey). Her happy-go-lucky attitude about love is infectious, inspiring her cherub-faced student, Edison (Bryce Robinson), to blow his entire $13 allowance on a flower arrangement for the girl of his dreams.

Edison has some fairly healthy role models in the love department. He is watched over by his custodial grandparents Edgar and Estelle (Hector Elizondo and Shirley MacLaine), who have been happily married for 40 years and planning to renew their vows. But there’s a hiccup in their romance when grandma admits to a decades-ago indiscretion after having a conversation with Grace, their teenage babysitter (Emma Roberts). Grace, who’s about to head off to college, and her boyfriend Alex (Carter Jenkins) are trying to plan a first-time sexual tryst, aided by their dimwitted, goofily-in-love besties Willy and Felicia (Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift).

Equally daft, but with no love to show for it, is Julia’s neurotic career woman gal pal Kara (Jessica Biel), who is so fed up with all of the pressures that accompany the Hallmark holiday that she throws an annual “I Hate Valentine’s Day” party. When she’s not drowning her sorrows in chocolate-covered nougat hearts, she is the public relations flack for Sean (Eric Dane), an aging football star who holds a press conference to reveal a love-related secret of his own that ambitious sportscaster Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) is there to cover.

Meanwhile, Liz (Anne Hathaway), a struggling secretary/poet is starting a brand new romance with sweet but conservative Midwesterner Jason (Topher Grace). Liz has a secret of her own: she puts on funny accents and role-plays as an adult phone entertainer. It turns out that the florists aren’t the only ones who have lots of work to do on the day of amour.

But wait. There’s more. Kathy Bates, Queen Latifah, and perennial Marshall film staple Larry Miller also make brief, forgettable appearances along the way. Just in case you’re keeping count, that’s a pair each of Robertses, Jessicas, Taylors, plus a McDreamy, a McSteamy, and a partridge in a pear tree. Wait, wrong holiday.

Valentine’s Day is a mash-up of every hackneyed boilerplate rom-com plotline – from teen sex farce to scorned woman serving up a piping hot dish of revenge to the newly minted genre of baby boomers getting busy – that Hollywood has ever churned out. It thinks that the dazzling pearly whites of its cast-of-a-thousand celebs will distract from the fact that it’s a blatant rip-off of the charming Christmas-centered British comedy, Love Actually. Ha! Not without wacky Bill Nighy (or Colin Firth, for that matter).

The only time it almost gets there is during the relatively quiet scenes between Holden (Bradley Cooper), a kind, handsome fellow and his airplane seatmate army Captain Kate Hazeltine (Julia Roberts). Holden is intrigued by Kate, who is flying around the world – fourteen hours each way – to spend just one evening with her very special Valentine.

Among the heaping dollops of celebrities in this movie, Roberts is its one bona fide star. It’s telling that the hands-down best scene in the movie is actually an outtake where a limo driver asks her character if she’s ever been shopping on Rodeo drive. Roberts’ answer is confirmation of why the red headed girl with the Cheshire cat grin is America’s long reigning sweetheart.

For their parts, both Kutcher and Hathaway do their best to make their underdeveloped characters likeable and lively, mostly succeeding. The rest of their cast mates, though, are underused (Garner and Grace), overacted (Swift and Biel), or simply phoning it in (everyone else).

Marshall, the man behind romantic comedy staples such as Pretty Woman and The Princess Diaries, just barely gets Valentine’s Day to hang together, albeit like a prom dress bought at the last minute. It covers the material, is a little uncomfortable to move in, and there’s someone else across the room (or the pond) who looks much better wearing the same thing.