This review first appeared in The Colorado Springs Gazette. To read this review at its original source, click here.

One of The Back-up Plan’s not-so-subtle messages is that raising children is hard, thankless, agonizing, excruciating, soul-sucking work. And then something magical and transcendent happens that makes all the pain worthwhile. As the film dragged on, the agonizing, excruciating and soul-sucking part was certainly proving to be true, but like the cinematic optimist I am, I kept holding out hope for the magical and transcendent part that would make the painful film worth my time. It never arrived.

After years of dating and failing to find Mr. Right, Zoe’s (Jennifer Lopez) biological clock convinces her it’s time to take drastic measures. However, the very day she opts for artificial insemination and single motherhood, she meets Stan (Alex O’Loughlin), a charming wannabe restaurateur. After several weeks of blissful dating, Zoe comes clean about her condition. Initially stunned, Stan surprises Zoe by telling her he’s in it for the long haul, a commitment that is put to the test over the next nine months by Zoe’s wildly fluctuating hormones, mind-numbing shopping trips for baby products and witnessing the birth of a child that more closely resembled the first emergence of the creature in “Alien” than anything your mother ever forced you to watch on PBS. Will Zoe and Stan’s whirlwind romance and new relationship withstand the stress or collapse under all that baby weight?

Like recent, similar movies, (the enjoyable Baby Mama comes to mind) The Back-up Plan uses kids as an excuse to get a man and a woman together. While Zoe insists it is a baby and not a man that she needs in her life, the screenwriters, such as they were, knew differently. Thus, while initially masquerading as a comedy about the perils of pregnancy and child rearing, The Back-up Plan reveals itself to be just another in a long line of formulaic romantic comedies.

There is nothing whatsoever surprising or unexpected. We’ve seen everything here before—the usual pratfalls and hi-jinx (it is now apparently compulsory that all romcoms have moments in which the two leads either injure themselves, each other or those around them due to some sort of clumsiness meant to be endearing but that always plays as knockoff Three Stooges slapstick). And because we can predict every scene long before it arrives, the film becomes profoundly boring. The unrelenting tedium is broken up only by scenes that are clearly trying to plunder laughter by going for the now all-too common gross out. Except that in The Back-up Plan, we trade the customary crude, visceral sexuality for that of gynecological exams and the cruel and unusual punishment of live childbirth.

It’s been a long time since I’ve vigorously wanted a film to end more than The Back-up Plan. My apologies to my seatmates for my constant fidgeting and likely all-too audible sighs. Even the adorable Jennifer Lopez couldn’t rescue this stinker of a film. I would rather carry a child to term, be in labor for countless hours and deliver an 11-pound baby without an epidural than have to sit through that mess again.

© Copyright 2010 Brandon Fibbs. All rights reserved.

Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Alex O’Loughlin, Michaela Watkins, Anthony Anderson, Tom Bosley
Directed by Alan Poul
Rated PG-13 for sexual content including references, some crude material and language.
Running Time: 106 minutes