Seen on: February 8, 2010

The players: Director: Garry Marshall, Writer: Katherine Fugate, Cast: Bradley Cooper, Ashton Kutcher, Julia Roberts, Jennifer Garner, Patrick Dempsey, Emma Roberts

Facts of interest: Garry Marshall also helmed "Pretty Woman."

The plot: The film follows a group of individuals from Los Angeles as they experience love in all forms on Valentine's Day.

Our thoughts: Garry Marshall’s new romantic comedy “Valentine’s Day” is a major big-screen drag. It’s a cheap, cold Hollywood rip-off of Richard Curtis’ incredibly entertaining and heartfelt “Love Actually,” and it completely fails to establish an attractive feeling of romance. In fact, it’s a film that turns Valentine’s Day into a real nightmare.

While I have no doubt “Valentine’s Day” will manage to seduce a bunch of cinemagoers looking for big-screen romance and all, I have to count myself among those who just won’t buy Marshall’s desperate attempts to have his gigantic all-star cast deliver a series of bad jokes and generate an emotional, romantic atmosphere.

Written by Katherine Fugate, the film follows a group of Los Angeles individuals who experience the ups and downs of love and everything that comes with it on Valentine’s Day. Needless to say, people’s paths will cross, love will be found and lost, and relationships will be tested in all sorts of ways.

What the film has going for it is its big cast, which includes decent performances by Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Emma Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Jamie Foxx, Anne Hathaway and Hector Elizondo and more disappointing appearances by Jessica Biel, Topher Grace, Taylor Swift, Queen Latifah, Taylor Lautner and Patrick Dempsey.

Giving you a quick insight into what each of the film’s characters is doing would require me to write an entire essay, so I’ll leave that up to you to discover in case you plan on seeing “Valentine’s Day.” I personally can’t recommend it at all, and I say that as someone who can easily fall in love with a solid, enjoyable romantic comedy.

This movie, however, is neither romantic nor hilarious. The story is as empty as it can be, and the awkward pace of the film made it impossible for me to care for any of these characters. It becomes obvious early on that Marshall intends on creating a bunch of drama here, but none of it is remotely intriguing or authentic enough to evoke strong emotions.

In other words, what worked beautifully in “Love Actually” fails miserably in “Valentine’s Day.” The heart, the humor, the drama and that cozy feeling of love covering nearly every scene are simple non-existent in Marshall’s flick, which goes stale right after the opening credits. Big-screen magic doesn’t happen that easily.

Even though the film is not necessarily boring and it looks like everybody involved with the project had a great time shooting it, I wish some of that fun made it into the final cut. There’s just something about how the characters are portrayed and hoe they behave within their own little segments that just doesn’t come across as genuine as I expected.

Freaky quote: "She said YES!" - Ashton Kutcher

The final word: The large cast will easily help “Valentine’s Day” bring in a lot of moola at the box office this first weekend, but my hope is word will spread fast that this romantic comedy is no match for Curtis’ “Love Actually” or many other similar films of the same genre. This year’s “Valentine’s Day” is neither surprising nor lovely.

Article by Franck Tabouring