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THE BACK-UP PLAN
The 2010 romantic comedy The Back-up Plan has flashes of originality in terms of story, but suffers from an overly padded screenplay, a rather annoying lead character, and a less than charismatic leading man.
Jennifer Lopez, away from the big screen for a minute, returns as Zoe, a romance-challenged pet shop owner who decides she can't wait for the right man in order to have a baby so she decides to be artificially inseminated. On the very day that she has the procedure, Zoe meets cute with a gourmet cheese maker named Stan (Alex O'Loughlin) and falls for him almost instantly and once she confesses that she is pregnant (with twins) and Stan wants to commit to her anyway, she does everything she can to drive him away.
Kate Angelo, who was a contributor to the screenplay for the Cameon Diaz/Jason Segel comedy Sex Tape, scores points for creating a leading character who is not afraid of having a child on her own and seems ready for the challenges ahead of her, but really isn't. I did like the fact that the entire film was not about Zoe trying to hide the fact that she was pregnant, but it was after this reveal and Stan commits to her anyway is where the film really starts to get messy.
Once Stan makes the commitment to stay with Zoe and to raise these twins as his own, Zoe seems to think this gives her license to behave anyway she wants and Stan is just supposed to roll with it. The story initially establishes Zoe as someone positive and contemporary and likable but forgets about all that about halfway through the film and turns her into a whiny, spoiled, entitled diva who expects Stan and everyone else to bow to her whim, driving Stan away and making me want to give up on this seemingly very long and often tiresome cinematic journey.
The performances are a matter of taste...Lopez, who looks absolutely amazing, overacts throughout and commits to a lot of forced physical comedy that just slowed the film down. O'Loughlin looks good without a shirt, but his performance was lifeless and uninteresting. An actor with a little more experience in this role really might have helped here. Ryan Gosling comes to mind. There were some fun comic bits contributed along the way by Anthony Anderson as a Mr. Mom who offers advice to Stan, Melissa McCarthy as the leader of a single moms therapy group, and Linda Lavin as Zoe's grandmother. This film also marked the final film appearance of the late Tom Bosley as Grandma's fiancee. Hardcore Lopez fans might add half a bag of popcorn to this rating, but for this reviewer, this one was pretty hard going.
The 2010 romantic comedy The Back-up Plan has flashes of originality in terms of story, but suffers from an overly padded screenplay, a rather annoying lead character, and a less than charismatic leading man.
Jennifer Lopez, away from the big screen for a minute, returns as Zoe, a romance-challenged pet shop owner who decides she can't wait for the right man in order to have a baby so she decides to be artificially inseminated. On the very day that she has the procedure, Zoe meets cute with a gourmet cheese maker named Stan (Alex O'Loughlin) and falls for him almost instantly and once she confesses that she is pregnant (with twins) and Stan wants to commit to her anyway, she does everything she can to drive him away.
Kate Angelo, who was a contributor to the screenplay for the Cameon Diaz/Jason Segel comedy Sex Tape, scores points for creating a leading character who is not afraid of having a child on her own and seems ready for the challenges ahead of her, but really isn't. I did like the fact that the entire film was not about Zoe trying to hide the fact that she was pregnant, but it was after this reveal and Stan commits to her anyway is where the film really starts to get messy.
Once Stan makes the commitment to stay with Zoe and to raise these twins as his own, Zoe seems to think this gives her license to behave anyway she wants and Stan is just supposed to roll with it. The story initially establishes Zoe as someone positive and contemporary and likable but forgets about all that about halfway through the film and turns her into a whiny, spoiled, entitled diva who expects Stan and everyone else to bow to her whim, driving Stan away and making me want to give up on this seemingly very long and often tiresome cinematic journey.
The performances are a matter of taste...Lopez, who looks absolutely amazing, overacts throughout and commits to a lot of forced physical comedy that just slowed the film down. O'Loughlin looks good without a shirt, but his performance was lifeless and uninteresting. An actor with a little more experience in this role really might have helped here. Ryan Gosling comes to mind. There were some fun comic bits contributed along the way by Anthony Anderson as a Mr. Mom who offers advice to Stan, Melissa McCarthy as the leader of a single moms therapy group, and Linda Lavin as Zoe's grandmother. This film also marked the final film appearance of the late Tom Bosley as Grandma's fiancee. Hardcore Lopez fans might add half a bag of popcorn to this rating, but for this reviewer, this one was pretty hard going.