The Love Eyes double feature reveals a lot of high hopes for filling the void for weird genre Valentine’s Day films and really not that much else. The Vulture wants to know if Love Hurts even counts as a movie, with its sub 90 minute run-time and lack of plot, which really tells you all you need to know about 87 North Productions’ newest iteration on a theme of very, very entertaining action-forward films. Really, thinking about it more as a question of how far outside of the aesthetic sensibilities of its own movies can Love Hurts go is probably more interesting than thinking about the movie itself, and the answer is that it’s actually fairly true to form: it’s yet another holiday-inspired kung fu movie with a lightly baked cast of C-list actors with a charismatic B-lister in the pilot seat. Ke Huy Quan plays himself, a kind of Candide-like ex-enforcer from his kingpin brother’s syndicate who’s been pulled back in by an old flame he was charged to execute as his last job. Intriguingly, a voice over split POV device introduces his feelings as mutual upon their very first reunion but it doesn’t actually set up for any kind of meaningful misunderstanding or necessity for reading their minds without them speaking beyond that initial gambit.
Quan’s cheeriness and pep is disarming as always and coupled with the aplomb with which he’s willing to get the shit kicked out of him while he’s brawling really makes for a thrilling two opening fights–with first a poet “rival” the Raven and then with André Eriksen (also from Violent Night) and Marshawn Lynch from Bottoms. The film then lapses into a bit of a catatonic state while we unravel a sort of half-baked revenge backstory and receive some conflicting signals about Ariana DeBose’s fighting ability based on her former jobs in the Organization, followed by kind of a stellar monologue from Goonies alum Sean Astin, and culminating in a final pair of fight scenes that might qualify as absurdist if we hadn’t had so much build up and anticipation. Quan’s brother Knuckles played by Daniel Wu is a boba-slurping villain with a heart of coal who actually does a great job and I have no notes for him.
My conclusion conferring with Friend who came to watch the first half of the double feature, hoping, I guess, that Rhys Darby coming off of one of the funniest television shows in recent memory (Our Flag Means Death) would have more of a role than the couple of lines he’s given to sort of pad out the cerebral lull in the film, is that there was no real reason why the theater should’ve been completely empty besides us and one other couple at 8 on its opening weekend.
Friend quibbled with that, but I think Heart Eyes deserved way less than the two couples in an IMAX in its opener. Reading an interview with Josh Ruben the director for Heart Eyes, it sounds like a lot of the game of this movie for him was to get the color palette to look like the classic rom coms of the early 90s and pay homage to the lighting, which makes sense because those elements of the movie are sort of the best, especially compared to the script. Jason Gooding, who plays half of the sexy hetero couple of the film hails from Scream VI and Lauren O’Hara, the couple’s other half hails from not much else?
The movie is kind of too lazy to satirize any of the actual rituals of modern romance: there are a few quips about “needing a real man who will make the first move” as a toxic critique of Bumble, some cyberstalking of an ex who’s moved on too quickly, and light discussion of sugar daddies, but ultimately the conceit of accidentally finding a date on Valentine’s Day while a rampaging serial killer who kills dates out in public(*) is on the loose doesn’t really allow for a lot of commentary about what it’s like to date in 2025. Maybe that’s for the best because any discussion post pandemic lockdowns is wrapped up so much in the politicization of first dates and self-sorting? But Heart Eyes is more interested in sendups to the genre than the present: hence the cheeky monologue in the final act in which the best friend character strings as many romcoms into an inspirational speech as possible.
The slasher deaths are mostly unremarkable after the high water mark of the opening scene, because it’s hard to slash interestingly when you cannot slash your only Final girl and guy. Spoilers ahead. The modus operandi of the Heart Eyes Killer is impossible to solve in the universe of the movie, because we are given the perspective of the killer which throws us off in a lot of ways, along with the use of masks, but also the payoff never materializes. Heart Eyes has a false bottom ending and then a battle in a weird church that doesn’t really work tonally with the rest of the movie’s cutesy romcom vibe. Then it cuts to “one year later” epilogue which isn’t really necessary. So, yeah, as Friend said at the end of Love Hurts, “I give this two Argyles,” which feels like equal parts blessing and curse.
