'Heart Eyes' only hits the latter
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A rom-com in which someone names several genre classics in a row (“10 Things I Hate About You,” “Notting Hill,” “Crazy, Stupid, Love, “Love, Actually,” etc.), pretending they are just words in a sentence, would seem to be really cheeky and self-aware. Like it knows what’s been done, and the difference between something that works and doesn’t, and what it takes for the feeling to transfer from an onscreen pair to the one watching them.
Except “Heart Eyes” is clueless. Duplicating the weak meet-cute from “Anyone But You” and the oops-turns-out-the-hottie-I-just-met-is-my-new-colleague cliche from several recent mediocrities and struggling to improve from there, this love story passes recycled notes and thinks they deserve glitter because every so often someone dies in grisly fashion. Yes, this romance — in which Ally (Olivia Holt of “Totally Killer”) and Jay (Mason Gooding of “Adult Best Friends” and “The Fall”) run from the titular killer who hunts couples on Valentine’s Day and doesn’t know these co-workers have only known each other a few hours — is also a slasher movie, which isn’t a fun genre mash-up so much as a chance to give half the effort and require twice the suspension of disbelief. This is predictable and shallow posing as clever and knowing, just because the cops (Devon Sawa, Jordana Brewster) are named Hobbs and Shaw (ugh) and the main characters comment on this (ugh) and there’s a generally winking tone brought to otherwise sinister material.
Director Josh Ruben (the superior “Werewolves Within”) might think this is a new spin on “Scream,” but the red herrings are unsatisfying and the hardest your mind will work is figuring out if there’s less credibility in the couple or the way everyone’s behaving on a day when they know they can be targeted. Maybe that’s intended as a commentary on taking power away from those who terrorize us, but A. No. and B. that doesn’t explain the typically ridiculous horror-movie choices undertaken when the killer turns up at a drive-in. Or the fact that Holt and Gooding make little impression separately or together.
It’s almost like “Heart Eyes” wanted to be a fun riff on slasher movies and but everyone overlooked the hook and decided to vamp, like the opening to “Thunderstruck” without arriving at the actual song. Fittingly, the movie gets aC.
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