THE BACK-UP PLAN — ★ — Jennifer Lopez, Alex O'Loughlin; rated PG-13 (vulgarity, profanity, sex, violence, brief partial nudity, slurs); in general release
"The Back-up Plan" wants to be cute. But more often it settles for being cutesy. And more often still, it's off-puttingly crude.
It's almost as if the filmmakers were aiming for a female-centric version of the sweet-and-salty, male-centric Judd Apatow comedies. Try to imagine what "Baby Mama" would have been like if it had been done by those folks. Or don't, because it can't even live up to that "ideal."
That is because of its heavy emphasis on vulgar humor — be it sexual in nature, or jokes and gags dealing with other bodily functions, including scatological humor.
As such, it's not exactly a great big-screen return for Jennifer Lopez. She stars as Zoe, a New York City pet store owner who is unlucky at love. In fact, she's recently undergone an artificial impregnation procedure so she won't have to worry about pesky relationships complicating things.
Of course, as fate would have it, that's when she finally meets Mr. Right. He's Stan (Alex O'Loughlin), a hunky dairy farmer who's been burned by bad relationships as well.
These two meet when they both get into a taxi at the same time. The sparks fly, and they're soon inseparable. The complication is Zoe still hasn't told him she's pregnant. Stan, too, is withholding a few secrets.
Kate Angelo's script is your run-of-the-mill, formulaic nonsense. But as staged by television director Alan Poul, it becomes an over-the-top, frantic — and even irritating — mess.
And Lopez is clearly trying to imitate Sandra Bullock's customary ditzy shtick. The problem is, as likable as Lopez can be, she's nowhere near as charming as Bullock, who makes it seem easy.
There's also a serious lack of chemistry between her and the impossibly bland and monotone O'Loughlin (TV's "Three Rivers").
If that wasn't bad enough, the film also wastes the talents of one-time television stars Tom Bosley and Linda Lavin. She's only there to fulfill the cliched role as the foul-mouthed granny.
"The Back-up Plan" is rated PG-13 for crude references and humor, both sexual and scatological in nature (including sight gags and use of vulgar slang terms), scattered strong profanity (including one usage of the so-called "R-rated" curse word), simulated sex and other sexual contact, mostly comic violence (a water fight, an auto mishap and various pratfalls), brief partial female nudity, and derogatory language and slurs (some of them sexist in nature). Running time: 100 minutes.
e-mail: jeff@desnews.com