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The Back-up Plan (2010)

Director: Alan Poul

Time Out rating

Average user rating

4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

J-Lo is back with another girl-next-door act (wearing eight-inch Louboutin heels, naturally). In this try-hard New York romcom she plays Zoe, a pet-shop-owner-from-the-block, pushing 40, clock ticking. With not the whiff of a man in sight, she activates plan B: artificial insemination. Then, what do you know, she meets Mr Right (Alex O’Loughlin) on her way home from the clinic. It’s raining and they jump into the same taxi – it happens all the time in the movies, phoney contrived ones at least.

This screams ‘J-Lo comeback vehicle’ – as you can tell from the casting of Mr Right. Alex who? Apparently he’s an Australian actor who has been on the telly (a back-up for John Cusack?). It’s a sparkless match. He is meant to be a farmer, which involves a lot of standing around looking hot at a produce market. All the usual rom-com accessories come as standard: sassy BF, calamitous first date, cutesy pet dog (for double-cuteness this one is wheelchair bound).

Actually, the dog is crucial to one of the film’s best gags: a dog-ate-my-pregnancy-test set- up. Otherwise it’s money for old rope: gynaecology – speculums, legs akimbo – and pregnancy gags, plus a circa-1976 stereotype of a dippy single-mothers’ support group. If this is a comeback, let’s hope J-Lo’s got something else up her sleeve. I’d love to see her ditching the nice-nicey routine and sinking her teeth into a juicy super-bitch.

Author: Cath Clarke

Time Out London Issue 2072: 13-19 May, 2010

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User reviews of this film

iain said...

Posted on May 11 2010 22:15 Forgot to rate film..

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iain said...

Posted on May 11 2010 22:12 The first 30 minutes of this film were so dull i was close to nodding off. Then the film started to improve with a couple of very funny scenes and i started to enjoy it a little more. The storyline is quite weak and some of the support actors are dreadful. The only real highlight for me was watching the gorgeous Jennifer Lopez again.

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sarah george said...

Posted on May 09 2010 19:27 This film is no worse than Hot Tub Time Machine. And, at least The Back Up Plan is innocuous in its humour rather than the hateful mean-spirited bile that makes up the 'comedy' in HTTM. They are both pretty poor films but, no surprises, TO's team of Cub Scout reviewers think that, yet again, a comedy aimed at women is worthy of 1 stars and a comedy aimed at men is worthy of 3. Check your archive, it is without fail always the same pattern. Thanks guys!

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Michael said...

Posted on May 06 2010 21:21 It seems to me that there's a lot of people in the media who find it trendy to put down people like J-Lo. Like sheep they all follow each other in the trendy put down.
This film is no worse than any of the three star films here and may be better than a couple of them.

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