Love Virtually (2023)
I watched Love Virtually last week with the full intention of reviewing it. However, it is such a terrible movie that I didn’t want to talk about it. But it is my sworn duty to warn you of crap like this so you don’t have to watch it. Warning: This may be more of a rant than a review.
In a world where people commonly use Metaverse virtual reality, a group of people try to navigate both their real life and virtual life relationships.
Ugh, this movie is so bad. There are so many characters that the script doesn’t actually take any time to develop any of them. We have professional gamer Roddy (Peter Gilroy) who messed up his relationship with his girlfriend Kimberly (Paige Mobley). He’s trying to save it but she blocked him and she’s now being romantically pursued by another professional gamer, Kalvin (L.E. Staiman). Next is the married couple Barry (Ryan O’Flanagan) and Angela (Ksenia Valenti). Barry spends so much time working that he doesn’t pay attention to Angela so Angela has sought comfort in the…arms…of the virtual reality shopping helper, Chatbot (Paul F. Thompkins). They are attending online couples therapy but their therapist, Dr. Divine (Stephen Tobolowsky), is more interested in sexting with his virtual reality sidepiece, Dr. Evelyn (Cheri Oteri)….who ends up being his real life wife even though neither of them realize it. Finally, there’s influencer Clarissa (Nikki Howard) and basketball athlete La Monte (Vincent Washington). They both had big public relations issues and now they are trying to save their reputations by pretending to be “regular” people. They meet on a dating app, only they have trouble actually getting together to meet. But when they do and they realize who each other is? It’s a doozy.
So, yeah…we have storylines for nine people and a Chatbot. This movie isn’t even a full hour and a half long. It would have been better if we cut down the number of people involved. Make it about the triangle between Robby, Kimberly, and Kalvin with the b-plot of Clarissa and La Monte trying to save their reputations. Also make it funny. This is supposed to be a comedy but there wasn’t anything funny happening. Oh, and make the animation pretty. I get that it’s supposed to look like the Metaverse, which doesn’t have great animation, but this is a movie version of it. Stuff is supposed to look better in the movies.
This really may have been the worst movie I have ever seen. And I have seen some really bad movies. Stay away at all cost.
Rating: Can we go lower than F?