Valentine's Day (film) review

Every year around this time this film pops back up on the radar to attempt to cash in and make lonely people feel bad about their lives and make people who are in good relationships have their partners perhaps feel as though their partner could be doing more (the jerks.)

This film has a star-studded lineup from all across the Hollywood spectrum and it really is remarkable how many of them they are especially when you consider that a lot of these people have faded since then but in 2010, they were in their primes.

While the film definitely has its moments there is no denying that this is a direct ripoff of Love Actually in that a bunch of people who have individual stories have all of their paths come together in the last 15 minutes of the movie. This is mean to be touching, and some of them actually are, but for the most part it is evident very early on what they are going for here and that is to copy Love Actually (which, by the way, is an amazing film and the fact that it is being copied is probably flattering.)

While there isn't an official lead actor in this movie, I would guess that it is probably Reed Bennett, who is played by Ashton Kutcher.

[src](https://www.denverpost.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/20100210__20100212_D04_AE12SCVALENTINE.Dp1_.jpg?w=640)

Bennett is the owner / operator of a florist and of course this store is very popular on the busiest day of the year for people to spend tons of money on flowers. His performance while in the store is both stupid and unbelievable as he just looks like someone that wouldn't know a damn thing about flowers or really anything for that matter.

He was all the rage back in 2010 though, and tons of people were going to go and see this film just because he was in it. His performance failure doesn't end at just not being believable as a florist boss, his relationships in the film are also wonky and seem as though they are not genuine either. For his performance in Valentine's Day he was nominated for and won the Golden Raspberry Award (Razzie) for worst actor.

[src](http://www.dohafilminstitute.com/content/posts/image/61/normal_razzie1.jpg)

Bennett's love interest in the film, played by the then super-hot (is she still) Jessica Alba, who also won a Razzie for worst supporting actress in the same film. George Lopez and Taylor Lautner (who?) were also nominated for Razzies but unfortunately did not win.

Actors very rarely turn up to the Razzie award ceremonies and I have a lot of respect for those that do. Halle Berry and Sandra Bullock both turned up to accept their awards and kudos to both of them for accepting that everything that they do isn't always going to be great.

Anyway, back to Valentine's Day.

The film isn't terrible, but it is basically just your usual romance film with a little bit of rom-com mixed in. I have to say that I didn't laugh a great deal but some of the stuff that happens in this film is genuinely funny.. but this is very rare.

The only reason why I stuck around for the whole thing is because I wanted to see which superstar was going to appear on-screen next. Kathy Bates, for example, is a huge star and she was only in the film for something like 20 seconds and most of that is spent standing in the background so all of us can be like "Is that Kathy Bates in the background?"

[src](https://www.aceshowbiz.com/images/still/valentine_s_day27.jpg)

Héctor Elizondo plays a grandfather in the film and I wouldn't really consider him a household name. During certain segments I was actually thinking that they taught the painful smile meme guy how to act and threw him into the mix

I wouldn't say there are any real standout performances in this but if i was forced to choose I would say that Topher Grace did a decent job not appearing as though he just got of the set of That 70's Show for once.

Should I watch it?

While I am sitting here being overly mean about how the film was, I did in fact watch all of it because, if for no other reason, to see how the various segments end up intertwining in the end. Some of it is surprising (such as with Julia Roberts) and others not so much (Kutcher ending up with the "right" girl.)

If you are a fan of romantic comedies this one might not be too terrible or if you are a fan of seeing how much of a ripoff a film can be of another film than the parallels between this and Love Actually come at your fast and consistently.

I am sure that New Line Cinema doesn't really care that basically every critic lambasted this film because it made over $150 million worldwide. We are probably going to be subjected to this film on streaming services once a year for at least another decade.