A pseudo-romantic movie for a pseudo-holiday.
By Liz Anne Bautista

If you must know, just like every girl out there, I like watching rom-coms and feeling like a big ball of cheese every once in while (or even more often than I care to admit). So, I decided to be a total cliché and watched Valentine’s Day – on Valentine’s Day. The holiday is one big exercise in shameless capitalist commercialism, I know that, but after watching Valentine’s Day, I never knew it could get any worst. And this is coming from someone who cried in Sleeping in Seattle, Love Actually, The Notebook, Marley and Me – you get the picture…

I wasn’t quite prepared for the train wreck that was up ahead, but I should have seen it coming. I just didn’t want to be cynical, I guess, because it’s Conan O’Brien’s least favorite quality and I sure didn’t want to disappoint Coco. But, yeah, the signs were all there. First, you have the title, which is totally an unoriginal and uncreative start to luring couples into believing that this is the movie we have to watch on said pseudo-holiday. And then you have the poster that features a heart with all the big-name stars in it – Julia Roberts (who was barely in it), Ashton Kutcher (as a hopeless romantic florist), Jennifer Garner (as his best friend), Jessica Alba and Biel, Anne Hathaway (I thought her character as a receptionist who moonlights as phone sex operator was the only thing funny in this movie), Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Jamie Foxx, Queen Latifah, Shirley McLaine, and for the tweens, there’s Emma Roberts, Taylor Swift (in her first and hopefully last effort at acting) and wolf-boy Taylor Lautner – probably all there to compensate for the mediocre story and bad direction. And this actually came from veteran director Garry Marshall, who gave us Pretty Woman?

I have the lowest of the low brow when it comes to rom-coms, I kid you not, and I can’t believe I didn’t like this movie. Scene after scene, it was forgettable, predictable, and cringe-worthy. I’m definitely getting my money reimbursed is how bad it is.