Possibly the smuggest film ever made

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2004)

You can almost hear Richard Curtis chortling at his tripewriter as he trots out yet another batch of oh-so-clever gags, naff pop culture references, and mawkish sentiments. Weddings, funerals, Notting Hill, hysterical use of expletives - Curtis never seems to tire of having been there and done that, but I certainly have (the same thing happened after his brilliant Blackadder II series gave way to two largely uninspired follow-ups).
I know that this is make-believe, but Curtis links his romances with ridiculous and lazily contrived scenarios to cover up the fact that this is nothing more than a collection of sketches. Admittedly, some are quite cute, but the 'horny idiot goes to America' story is just rubbish, and no number of celebrity cameos can fill the dead spaces in the script.
The cast is certainly strong, but again, much of it is window-dressing - Keira Knightley might have million-dollar looks, but she's a two-bit actress. And Rowan Atkinson's store clerk is a direct rip-off of Eugene Levy's part in 'Serendipity'. At least Curtis has finally discovered that there are black people living in London.
No doubt Love Actually's fans are legion, but no matter how much they enjoy it, they'll never be as pleased with it as it is of itself.