New Year’s Eve

Look out Columbus Day! Watch out Flag Day! Garry Marshall could be coming for you next.

The veteran filmmaker continues his assault on would-be holidays with New Year’s Eve, an ensemble comedy that essentially is a follow-up to his prior film, Valentine’s Day.

Marshall assembles a powerhouse cast for this slick yet incredibly superficial crowd-pleaser that weaves together about a dozen stories of contemporary New Yorkers looking for romance or redemption before the ball drops in Times Square.

Among the subjects of this one-night whirlwind are a terminally ill man (Robert De Niro) and his nurse (Halle Berry); a chef (Katherine Heigl) still hurting after a breakup with a famous singer (Jon Bon Jovi); another singer (Lea Michele) trapped in an elevator with a holiday cynic (Ashton Kutcher); a courier (Zac Efron) who assists a lonely woman (Michelle Pfeiffer) with a last-minute quest to fulfill her resolutions from the prior year; two expectant mothers (Jessica Biel and Sarah Paulson) locked in a hospital competition for the first baby of the new year; a coordinator for the Times Square festivities (Hilary Swank) faced with an 11th-hour technical crisis; and a single mother (Sarah Jessica Parker) whose plans to spend a quiet night with her teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) go awry.

In typical Marshall fashion, the film is technically proficient but shamelessly sentimental, piling up the coincidences the closer the clock comes to striking midnight.

The film incorporates numerous New York landmarks into its story, using its setting as another character of sorts, even if it goes overboard with the product placement. In addition, there are cameo appearances too numerous to mention, although Dick Clark isn’t among them.

The script by Katherine Fugate (Valentine’s Day) is hit-or-miss by nature, with some vignettes standing out as more amusing or poignant than others. But it’s really a collection of disposable fluff.

The result is little more than an exercise in celebrity spotting, with about as much narrative substance as flipping through the average issue of Us Weekly. As for the significance of the day in question? It shouldn’t change anyone’s feelings one way or the other.

Rated PG-13, 118 minutes.