Valentines Day

(M) Roadshow DVD/BD

Shamelessly based on the much better film Love Actually, Valentines Day follows a day in the life of love lost then found, and tries to celebrate the most romantic day of the year for Americans.

Had the film only focused on a few intertwining storylines it may have been more successful. Aside from the fact that the film doesn’t have a storyline that isn’t utterly predictable (I started playing a game after a while trying to figure out which story might be hardest to predict) it also suffers from underwritten characters, clunky dialogue and being about half-an-hour too long.

The film’s major surprise is the talent involved — the roster of actors is huge (and would probably take the whole review to list). Even Kathy Bates’ puts in a cameo. Obviously even the actors must have thought the film would be much better than it is.

Incurable romantics should probably rent Love Actually; there are certainly better ways to spend two hours of a date on this stinker.

Adrian Drayton