‘Valentine’s Day’ a cinematic box of stale chocolates

“Valentines Day”

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx,… “Valentines Day”

Starring: Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, Jamie Foxx, countless A-List stars

Director: Garry Marshall

Warner Bros.

Grade: C-

It is wholly appropriate for the experience of watching a film about Valentine’s Day to be equivalent to that of eating a box of assorted chocolates.

Sometimes, you strike gold with a truffle or a caramel, but more frequently, you get slapped in the taste buds with a disappointing buttercream. Or a coconut — nothing is worse than the dreaded coconut-filled chocolate.

Unfortunately, the aptly named — and perfectly timed — “Valentine’s Day” is more coconut chocolate than anything else. With an A-list cast more varied than the most randomized box of chocolates and a script that borrows a little too heavily from the superior ensemble holiday film, “Love Actually,” the film provides some basic romantic thrills while inevitably leaving a horribly sweet aftertaste once it’s over.

Weaving together the narrative’s strands of a group of too-pretty-for-reality Los Angeles residents, the entire superficial spectrum of love and romance is represented throughout “Valentine’s Day.” Blossoming stages of a new relationship? Check. Cutesy adolescent crushes? Got it. Geriatric marriage that is almost too syrupy sweet to tolerate? You know it.

Describing in detail the specifics of all the characters’ stories would be doing the film a disservice. Much of the fun in watching the movie — and there isn’t a lot of fun to go around — is seeing how everyone connects and crosses paths. Even then, however, the contrived meet-cutes and awkward dialogue limits the enjoyment factor severely.

One thing “Valentine’s Day” definitely has going for it is the cast. Think of A-listers you would like to see in a film, and they’re probably in the movie. Ashton Kutcher and Jennifer Garner anchor most of the movie, and Taylor Swift proves her acting is even worse than her singing voice. Anne Hathaway phones in her performance as a phone sex operator who is  — surprise, surprise — embarrassed by her job.

Julia Roberts even shows up for six minutes — for which she purportedly received $3 million — and offers one of the film’s only surprises.

Actually, make that the film’s only surprise, and that may be “Valentine’s Day’s” biggest flaw — everything simply comes across like a box of year-old chocolate coated in a shiny gloss. Sure, Eric Dane’s football player character offers a refreshing alternative to the stereotypical masculine role, and Jessica Biel keeps the tragic single woman shtick amusing, but there aren’t enough similarly entertaining characters to make the film worth sitting through.

There have apparently been discussions about extending the holiday movie trend to New Year’s Eve. And why stop there? Just think of the possibilities for a Labor Day film.

But seriously, at least that movie would be original.