The market has recently been flooded with so many bad romantic comedies like that hopefully this movie will spawn a change for the good. What to Expect When You’re Expecting is an ensemble chick flick about soon-to-be first-time parents that, just like Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, all of the characters are loosely brought together in the end.
Instead of portraying the fears and intimidation of pregnancy in a realistic light, What to Expect relies your average cliches for so-called entertainment. It somehow crams every stereotype about pregnancy into one very long narrative that feels like it drags on far beyond its 110-minute runtime. Having watched Mrs. Hickman go through two pregnancies, I can attest that a full-term pregnancy glides by faster than this turd of a movie.
Each of the pregnant characters embodies several typical aspects of pregnancy. Elizabeth Banks plays a woman who has tried to get pregnant for years. When she finally gets pregnant, she hates it. Jennifer Lopez plays a woman unable to bear children, so she and her husband plan to adopt from Ethiopia. Cameron Diaz plays a strong fitness guru who turns into a mega-B-word with pregnancy. Anna Kendrick plays a twenty-something who accidentally gets knocked up. And Brooklyn Decker plays a gorgeous young woman whose pregnancy is an unfair breeze. Their labors also cover the stereotypical bases: one miscarries, one has a scary emergency c-section, one’s is easy and one is tough.
Unfortunately, the husbands and boyfriends of these woman aren’t entertaining either. We watch them go through the cliche reactions as well, often through quirky and zany weird subplots. A group of male side-characters is introduced – consisting of Chris Rock, Rob Huebel and Thomas Lennon – that carry a great amount of laughs. These guys get together every Saturday morning to walk their children through the park. It’s their away time from their wives. These characters are so entertaining that they deserve a movie of their own, not second-fiddle parts in this waste of time.
Good chick flicks are hard to come by and What to Expect When You’re Expecting isn’t one of them. You’ve seen it all before, so why pay to see it again?
Photo credit: Lionsgate
