Director: Kirk Jones
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock
Certificate: 12A
Running time: 110 minutes
Synopsis: Five couples prepare for parenthood. Hilarity ensues.
Not being a man yet blessed with a living, breathing, crying bundle of joy (owing to the fact that it’s difficult to conceive a child with a pillow-girlfriend), perhaps I’m not this film’s target audience. But then again, balls to that logic, because a film should be aimed at – and hope to please – everyone. By that logic, WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING fails with a capital F.
Where to start? Essentially the plot boils down to five separate couples preparing to have babies, whilst dealing with various problems surrounding this big step. That wouldn’t be so bad, if 1) The character’s lives weren’t clumsily interconnected, and 2) The characters weren’t so bloody unlikeable. It’s incredibly hard to relate to any of these nasty, crass, selfish characters one bit, especially in the cases of Cameron Diaz’s celebrity fitness guru Jules, who comes across as nothing more then a cold bitch, and Elizabeth Banks as baby-obsessive Wendy, who’s so annoyingly screechy and drippy she makes you want to tear your face off.
The wafer thin plot is stretched to breaking point over its two-hour running time, and is peppered with unrealistic scenes, situations, and moments that would look out of place in a frat boy comedy, let alone this terrible excuse for a rom-com (the nadir of such moments being a pointless, embarrassing golf-cart chase); the humour is awfully OTT, and the writers should be shot for believing that dated pop-culture references passes for comedy. The flat direction does little to improve the film whatsoever; the sudden swerves from comedy to emotional drama are awkward and badly construed; and the terribly intrusive soundtrack made me want to barf into my soft drink.
Aside from the 20 minutes or so of screen time for Chris Rock (who’s funny even when lumbered with anything but jokes, as is the case here), there’s nothing to recommend about this piece of trash: it’s sexist, it’s not funny, it’s uninvolving, it’s annoying, and worst of all, it fails to make you care one jot about any character on screen.
It’s so bad it’s enough to put you off having children ever!
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING arrives in UK cinemas 25th May
