Hollywood Stars Valentine's Day

"Valentine's Day'' might boast the most shirtless dudes we've seen in a movie since "300.'' Ironically enough, the often bare-chested "Twilight'' star Taylor Lautner isn't one of them.

If this Hallmark card of a film didn't already make it clear, the beefy bodies of "Valentine's Day'' does: This is a movie aimed squarely at women and, one supposes, their unfortunate accompanying dates.

Set in Los Angeles, the film begins with the baritone voice of a "DJ Romeo Midnight'' announcing that in honor of Valentine's Day, he's going to play "the songs you love and the songs you love to love to.''

We have Ashton Kutcher, as a pink-clad florist, paired with his reluctant fiance, played by Jessica Alba. Jennifer Garner, a teacher, is matched with a cheating Patrick Dempsey. Anne Hathaway, paying the bills as a phone sex operator, is falling for Topher Grace.

Teen love is represented in the pairs of Emma Roberts and Carter Jenkins, and Lautner and Taylor Swift, making her feature film debut as a bouncy airhead. Our elderly couple is Shirley MacLaine and Hector Elizondo. We also get a little puppy love in a fifth grader played by Bryce Robinson.

Our freelancers include Jamie Foxx as a cynical sports reporter, Kathy Bates as his boss, Eric Dane as a Brett Favre-esque retiring quarterback, Queen Latifah as his agent, Jennifer Biel as his publicist, George Lopez as a happily married man (whose wife is the only one virtually left out of the movie's pairings), Bradley Cooper as a jet-set businessman, and his airliner seatmate Julia Roberts, absurdly playing an Army captain on leave of duty.

Many of these luminaries will - not unlike real-life Hollywood - play musical chairs on one fateful Valentine's Day. Cynicism will be defeated and love will triumph. Teenage sex will be treated fearfully. The kindness of airline workers will be relied on to fathom the importance of a dramatic moment.

To his credit, director Garry Marshall juggles the many overlapping story lines successfully, though "Valentine's Day'' is obviously strained by the excess. Marshall is a funny man who has, in a long career, made some excellent movies and some lamentable ones ("Runaway Bride'').

"Valentine's Day'' is exactly what it professes to be: an overdose of sentimentality. One certainly can't mistake it, like one confused 5th grader in the film does, for anything related to the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. But the reference is enough to make one wish for "Scarface,'' or, if love is still on the menu, "Some Like it Hot.''

Los Angeles – Director Garry Marshall sure knows how to throw a party. He just starts with making a movie jam-packed with a who's who list of Hollywood superstars, then invites everyone to the premiere at Grauman's Chinese Theatre. That's just what happened on Monday, Feb. 8, when Marshall hosted his "Valentine's Day" premiere and party in the heart of Tinseltown, and his actors flocked to the red-and-pink carpet.

Julia Roberts and her niece Emma Roberts led the way; they both have roles in the multi-generational comedy-romance. For the elder Roberts, it was a return to the familiar with Marshall, who made her a star a long time ago.

"There were a lot of 'Pretty Women' people on the movie," Roberts mused at an earlier press conference, referring to Hector Elizondo and Larry Miller, who both star in "Valentine's Day," too and joined her and Marshall at the glittery premiere.

"We laughed about a lot of things. Particularly how old we've all gotten in twenty years. Twenty years older, in fact, in twenty years. Now I just do whatever Garry wants me to do. I'm his comedy slave every ten years. We did 'Pretty Woman,' and then ten years later we did 'Runaway Bride,' and then ten years later we did 'Valentine's Day'!"

Julia Roberts may feel a bit old at 42, and she was certainly surrounded by beautiful youngsters both in the film and at the premiere. Jessica Alba, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Biel, and Christine Lakin glowed, while Taylor Lautner, Ashton Kutcher, and Bradley Cooper caused the massed fans across the street from the theater to scream uncontrollably.

They all star in the comedy, along with a gang of other hotties who came to the celebration, including Patrick Dempsey, Jamie Foxx, Eric Dane, Topher Grace, and Jennifer Garner, whose lacy Valentino sheath proved she's back in shape after the birth of her second daughter with hubby Ben Affleck. He stayed home with the kids, but many others in the cast brought their famous families. Eric Dane brought his pregnant wife Rebecca Gayheart, and Demi Moore and her daughter Rumer Willis joined Ashton Kutcher for the fete.

And it was the happily married Kutcher who explained the underlying message of "Valentine's Day" at the press conference, encouraging audiences to spread the love they'll hopefully feel after seeing the film.

"When it comes to love, everybody wants to receive it but at the end of the day you don't get to receive it until you start to give it," he said.