Valentine's Day: Movie Review

Another Valentine's Day is fast-approaching and we all know how hectic and strenuous (especially for the guys) that day is all the time - reservations for a romantic dinner, a bouquet of flowers is almost a must, a box of chocolates may already do for some and that is only the tip of the iceberg. But what is most important in celebrating Valentine's Day is that we must remember that it is all about love and no dinner or any object can ever replace one's love for another. Just wondering, anyone with a unique Valentine's Day story to share? Anyway, a literally star-studded film, aptly named "Valentine's Day", is attempting to make waves on the day of hearts by showing it in a unique light we don't normally see on the big screen - Valentine's Day and love in particular with its imperfections; warts and all. Read on to know if they succeeded or not.

"Valentine's Day" showcases the lives of different people as they individually cope with the day of hearts. The film starts off with Reed (Ashton Kutcher) as he proposes to his girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba). Sad to say, her initial reaction is lukewarm. There is also Julia (Jennifer Garner), Reed's bestfriend, who is currently going out with a divorced heart surgeon, Harrison (Patrick Dempsey). Question is, is he telling the truth to Reed? We also meet Liz and Toper. Can Toper accept Liz's biggest secret from him? Julia's mother, Estelle (Shirley MacLaine) must reveal an affair from long ago to her husband, Edgar (Hector Elizondo). Will he accept her after this revelation? Their granddaughter (Emma Roberts) on the other hand is planning to have sex with her boyfriend during Valentine's Day to make the day really special for the both of them. Meanwhile, a publicist named Kara (Jessica Biel) and Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) both hate Valentine's Day. Can they discover what the day truly means for everyone else?

We can surmise that "Valentine's Day" is a must-watch - even after the high of Valentine's Day subsides. The film's magic, in our opinion, is on how it showed the imperfections of love and relationships and how people struggle to live through it (even playing dumb sometimes). What sets this apart is the feeling that the situations presented are down-to-earth, practical and real. These things happen and can even happen to us! Now was that too heavy? Ironically, the film was not slow or heavy at all. It was serious but had bouts of injected comedy from time to time that kept the overall mood light. The star-studded cast was outstanding and just seeing the who's who of Hollywood in one film is a sight to behold in its own right. The only flaw we see is that some characters were left out due to the nature of the film having so many story lines to develop. We also think some minor characters could have been cut and it would not have made any difference to the overall story or quality of the movie. We have a feeling that they just include some actors just to get more people to watch the film. The intertwined characters were also a bit too over-the-top for us - it was not cool at all and it made the movie somewhat predictable. Overall though, we highly-recommend this.

Rating: 4 and half reels

Why you should watch it:
- a practical, no nonsense story on what love (and Valentine's Day) in reality is
- the movie was really, really funny

Why you shouldn't watch it:
- we felt that some characters lacked airtime (or the film could have lived without them)
- we did not like the overall theme of the characters being interconnected with each other in some small way

Catch "Valentine's Day" starting February 12, 2010. This film is brought locally by Warner Bros. Pictures

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