God, what is that smell? Did you shit yourself? Something is in the air. Oh wait, I know what it is. It’s love. Love is in the air again and it smells like bad romcoms!
I had my fair share of really bad romantic comedies to pick from this year, as it is a tradition. A tradition I imposed on myself. Because believe it or not, I actually really do like a good romantic comedy or even a bad one.
F Valentine’s Day, however, just screamed how bad it was going to be from only the trailer I half-watched.
The plot seems to make no sense, as this woman, for no reason, hates the thought of being proposed to on Valentine’s Day. Why? Because it’s also her birthday and she hates her birthday. Really dumb setup. There is more to it, but with a story like this, you don’t want to wait until halfway into the movie to reveal it.
Her dad also died on her birthday, which is really something the movie should have started off with, as it makes her seem really crazy and the plot of the movie seem even more stupid.
It isn’t like the movie didn’t start off with flashbacks to their childhood, because they did, and yet…
Another thing that really jumped out at me was the main character and who she was reminding me of. And once I noticed it, I started to notice it throughout the whole film.
Virginia Gardner is our lead, who I literally just saw in the terrible killer whale movie simply called Killer Whale.
She was also in a slasher movie a couple of years ago called F*** Marry Kill. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it, but it looks terrible and has Fuck in the title.
Anyway, in this movie Virginia Gardner plays Gina or as they start to call her throughout the whole movie, “Ginah”, like vagina. That’s about the level we are at with the comedy, don’t expect anything in this movie to surpass that.
So very quickly I noticed a comparison to her and another character. Let’s see if you can guess it too with just a few hints.
She’s pretty crass, crude, rude, blonde, tall, skinny, loves football, is a lying grifter… she lives in a city much like let’s say Philadelphia…
C’mon! She’s Sweet Dee from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!
Once I noticed that, I couldn’t help to see that in other characters, like how her love interest is just Charlie It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.
He’s a tiny slimeball grifter just like her, who lies about everything, so obviously she’ll fall for him.
The plot of this movie is very generic, you know everything you’re about to see is something you’ve seen a million times in movies just like it.
Gina hates her birthday, so she just orders pizza, which is delivered by the restaurant owner for some reason. This is our Charlie character from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. His real name is Johnny, and he talks like a guy from Jersey, but since YouTube has been showing me shorts from this Jersey pizza place called Krispy Pizza, where they all talk like cartoon characters, “100%, it’s only right, distribush, and oh course forget about it”. The actor even looks like the guy, which made it even more distracting since I’ve already assigned him the role of Charlie from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia!
Him and Gina have this really weird conversation about pizza since her pizza came in the shape of a heart. The writing in this is so bad I had to stop and see who wrote this. And to my surprise this was written by none other than the guy who gave us… Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
I know right! Such talent, wasted on this movie.
So yeah, this guy sucks. And it explains why the writing in this is absolutely dogshit.
The actors try their best, and they aren’t bad in it (well, most of them). Virginia Gardner I’m sure is happy she doesn’t have to do any more of those pervy scenes Taylor Sheridan made her do in 1923.
And right away you know pizza guy is the one she’ll end up with eventually. But before she does, she must date the guy she’ll inevitably dump.
While taking the trash out, Gina finds a turtle with the owner’s number on his shell. The two meet up to exchange said turtle, even though when he offers to give her money, she turns it down. Not a very Dee thing to do. Especially since earlier we saw her scamming folks for money to get seats at a restaurant.
Instead of money, Dee agrees to have dinner with this guy, I was trying to think of an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia equivalent for him. The best I could come up with was that guy Dee briefly dated who was a young rapper, but the gang couldn’t figure out if he was “mentally challenged” or not.
They try too hard to make it very obvious that these two are polar opposites of each other. She’s into football, he’s a nerd only interested in movies and shows.
He likes to make pop culture references, and she likes to scam people. It’s also very clear that she just isn’t into this guy. But then they get robbed leaving the restaurant with him basically shitting himself and it’s up to her to grift her way out of this only Dee can, but out scum bagging the scumbag.
And for some reason that makes her interested in him? The turtle guy, not the mugger. I don’t know why turtle guy is into her, she showed zero interest in him the whole night and suddenly after getting mugged, she warms up to him and he’s madly in love? What?
The guy did nothing to make her swoon and fall for him other than cower and hand over his leftovers.
Skip a year later and these two I guess have been happily dating since then, I guess even living together. And he wants to take her on a vacation to visit her mom, most likely so he can propose to Gina on her birthday, AKA Valentine’s Day.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention as a birthday present from last year, Gina’s mom sent her two tickets to visit and $5k in a hotel coupon, but Gina misread it and gave it to Johnny the pizza guy thinking it was only 50 bucks.
So, you can guess where this is heading. You’d have to be Dee’s white rapper boyfriend to not figure this out.
On this vacation, Gina runs into Johnny and his twin sister, and for some reason, they concoct a lie about who he is and who his twin is, passing themselves off as newly engaged and longtime childhood friends of Dee, I mean Gina.
Maybe I missed something, but I have no idea why Charlie and Dee are lying to her boyfriend. I guess there was a scene previously where she lectured turtle man about being too trusting of people.
But I don’t know if that’s what they were hinting at seeing as she lies to him the whole rest of the movie. Man, you gotta love Dee and Charlie’s schemes.
Not wanting turtle man to propose to her, she instead goes on a date with Johnny while turtle man goes on a date with the sister.
And it turns out he has way more in common with her than his own girlfriend. She likes movies and weird toppings on pizza just like him!
Dee and Charlie… sorry, I meant to say Gina and Johnny however spend their date on a boat cruise, lying to everyone they talk to. How else are they going to get customers to come to Paddy’s Pub?!
And of course they realize, they’re both lying scumbags, they should be lying scumbags together!
But Gina is with turtle man, who I’m pretty sure is gay, and she does want to marry him, and she does want it to be on her birthday that is also Valentine’s Day.
The two of them rush to get to the hotel on time, making sure they grift a cop first. But when she gets to their room, she finds him in bed with the sister.
After they break up, for a whole year Johnny keeps leaving her a pizza, designed for each holiday. Because she gave him some rant about not having other holiday shaped pizzas like the heart shaped one she got for her birthday last year.
So let me get this straight. These two haven’t talked to each other in a year, he just leaves her pizza whenever it’s a holiday? And then finally on her birthday, he stops and this upsets her, so she goes to his pizzeria, only to find turtle man and the twin are together, but no Johnny.
Who is actually hiding inside her apartment, in a giant box, filled with balloons, butterflies, doves and him in a penguin suit, dressed in a tux. Because that was one of their lies they told when on the cruise.
Also, there’s a llama.
This movie is bad. It’s really bad, guys. I guess it was meant to be a comedy, yet nothing in it was funny or seemed like it could be a joke.
There’s no chemistry with anyone. The actual characters Dee and Charlie have way more chemistry together. I didn’t really care much about Gina, as she is unlikable.
The writing is pretty bad, with characters sounding like they know they are in a bad romcom.
Marisa Tomei is in this playing Gina’s mom. She was in this really fantastic romantic drama with Christian Slater called Untamed Heart.
If you’re looking for a really romantic movie (but is also sad) for V-Day, check out Untamed Heart.
F Valentine’s Day can go F itself. It gets a SKIP!
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