All star cast delivers a world class failure

Rating: 3/10 (21 January 2014)

Monetarily, Love Actually was a hit. Unfortunately box office numbers do not translate into a good film.
This movie was painful to get through. Love Actually is probably one of the movies I will use as an example of an ensemble cast that is trying to be something great but just doesn't seem to work with the number of characters involved in the production. The story has a weak excuse to have all of the characters connected. Each storyline could be its own movie and as a result each character isn't fully developed. It almost seems like writer and director Richard Curtis had this idea that he had to make a movie with an ensemble cast because that is in vogue at the time and as a result had to write a script as quickly as possible in order to monetize on this movement. There were parts of this movie that seemed like they didn't belong. With the large cast, the movie felt like watching something shot by someone with extreme ADHD or someone who didn't know what he was doing without a storyboard.
Watching this movie, I also got the feeling that Curtis has a sense of humor that didn't quite line up with mine and then I saw Rowan Atkinson pop up on screen and everything came into focus. I immediately had to see if Curtis had his hands on any Mr. Bean episodes and possibly the movie. Turns out he did so much of the humor in this movie made total sense to me. It's not my cup of tea but I do get it now. That said, it wasn't shocking for me to find out that this was Curtis' first film as a director. Love Actually was not good.
There were a few bright spots in this, however. Andrew Lincoln was excellent and I was surprised to see him in this cast as I am a big fan. He was the best part of this movie. Considering the cast around him, that was shocking to me but he was very good. Emma Thompson is always great and she was fantastic here. One or two of the story lines were good but for the most part they felt a little incomplete or rushed.
I hope I don't have to watch this one again as this was already the second time I watched this film and I remember leaving it with the same issues both times. What a shame. On the bright side, Love Actually has made quite a lot of cash so congrats to all those involved!