Great Valentine's Day

The latest film from Garry Marshall, the director of Pretty Woman, feels like a deflated love-heart balloon a week after Valentine's Day. It's tired, used and tainted with the promise of what it could have been if given a little more care.

Valentine's Day is America's version of Love Actually and follows intertwining couples and singles in Los Angeles as they make-up and break-up on the romantic holiday. It stars a who's who of Hollywood A-listers including Julia Roberts, Anne Hathaway, Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, Shirley MacLaine, Jessica Alba, Bradley Cooper, Jessica Biel, Taylor Lautner and Taylor Swift (to name a few).

Unlike Love Actually the presence of so many stars hinders rather than helps the film, but that could be due to Marshall's flimsy direction. It's unashamedly a romantic comedy, which would be fine if it was actually romantic. Cute animals, kissing kids and canoodling old couples don't make up for a lack of chemistry between the lead characters. Sure, Hathaway steals every scene she's in as a part-time phone sex worker and Foxx brings more than his fair share of comic relief, but that's not enough to make up for a `meh' story.

Fans of country crooner Swift will be unsatisfied with her acting debut as a stuck-up highschool dancer and her erratic, Golden Raspberry Award-worthy performance will leave audiences cringing.

Essentially Valentine's Day is a telemovie-quality film, right down to the flat camera work, cliché characters and uninspired scenarios. It will please hardcore fans of the rom-com genre, the rest of us however will be left reaching for a bucket. The reality is, Valentine's Day makes for a much better horror movie subject a la My Bloody Valentine 3D (the 80s original is worth a look too).