The Back-up Plan

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.