"I choo-choo-choose you": On Valentine's Day, 'Safe Haven' and 'A Good Day to Die Hard' compete for date-night audiences

Three of this week's wide releases are getting a jumpstart on the weekend, opening today, Valentine's Day, instead of Friday in order to capitalize on couples celebrating and singles in search of a girls' or dudes' night.

Safe Haven (3,223 theatres) is the most heart-tugging offering of the bunch. Nicholas Sparks, reigning romance specialist, devised this tale. Julianne Hough plays a woman with a past who moved to a small town and finds herself enchanted with a storekeeper and single dad (Josh
Duhamel). Critic David Noh predicts this "appealing,
compelling romance that will no doubt thrill the ladies, and not be
too terribly much of a chore for their menfolk to endure."

For others, nothing says Happy Valentine's Day like a bunch of guns. Those people can check out the fifth film in the Die Hard franchise, A Good Day to Die Hard (3,552 theatres). After all, wasn't the original Die Hard a love story in disguise, as John McClane walked on glass in order to save his ladder-climbing corporate wife from terrorists and
show her that it took a real man to get things done? Unfortunately, this outing doesn't even warrant cultural commentary. According to critic Daniel Eagan, the Russian terrorist centered plot "unfolds on a gargantuan scale, but
the stunt work and pyrotechnics can't hide how dull and pointless
this story is. In previous entries, McClane fought to free his
family; here, he's largely a bystander in a plot that makes almost
no sense." Especially when movies like Taken, which centered on Liam Neeson's daughter being kidnapped, have been such big hits, it doesn't make sense that family jeopardy would be removed from the equation. The name "Die Hard" will "muster a strong turnout followed by weak word of
mouth," Eagan predicts.

Targeted at a younger audience, Beautiful Creatures (3,000+ theatres) is the latest
supernatural teen romance. The film is "atmospherically shot, with two appealing leads," says FJI critic Frank Lovece, who expects that actors Alice Englert and  Alden Ehrenreich should be on everyone's radar before long. Like Safe Haven, it centers on a romance between  a girl with a dark secret and a boy, but in this case her secret is supernatural--she's a witch, or "caster." It's unlikely this will do anywhere near the business of Twilight, but a good performance could spawn a sequel.

Tomorrow, there will be the first wide animated release since Rise of the Guardians during Thanksgiving. That may be enough to secure a strong opening for Escape from Planet Earth, which will open in over 3,000 theatres. It's never a good sign when the writers or directors of a project sue their producer, but that's what happened here. Of course, long-delayed, lawsuit-ridden Margaret ended up being a pleasure, at least among select critics, but the February release date does not demonstrate much faith in the animated work.

On Tuesday, we'll see how these releases fared and if they wooed audiences out from the post-holiday slump at the box office.