THE BACK-UP PLAN (Alan Poul). 106 minutes. Opens Friday (April 23). For venues, trailers and times, see Movies. Rating: N
Unlike singers Madonna and Whitney Houston, Jennifer Lopez has had a moderately successful movie career. But if you’re thinking of catching her latest, take the title to heart and have a Back-Up Plan.[rssbreak]
This padded-out Sex And The City episode casts her as Zoe, a pet store owner who decides to get pregnant rather than wait for Mr. Right. No sooner does she get artificially inseminated (cue predictable awkward scene with gynecologist Robert Klein) than she meets hunk Stan (Alex O’Loughlin). Stan, by the way, sells gourmet cheese – a propos for a premise like this.
The rest is a predictable mix of misunderstandings and comic misfires, many of the latter involving a single-mother support group Zoe gets involved with. There are too few scenes involving Zoe’s bitter friend Mona (Michaela Watkins). And rather than sexy if noncommital, O’Loughlin comes across as creepy and potentially abusive.
I don’t think I’ve been to a critics’ preview screening of a comedy before where nobody laughed once.
