The Back-Up Plan 2010

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: For all the profanity (quite a bit) and sexual sass, this CBS Films product plays even more like a TV movie than its debut project, Extraordinary Measures. Read more

A.O. Scott, At the Movies: The premise was novel enough that I found it sweet and charming. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: The characters are meant to be attractive and likable, but they come off like narcissistic divas. Read more

Kathleen Murphy, MSN Movies: To prep for The Back-up Plan, shed all notions of how grown-ups behave in the real world. Read more

Moira MacDonald, Seattle Times: Can I just go watch Date Night again? Please? Thanks. Read more

Nathan Rabin, AV Club: It's really two movies, one silly and one serious. Too bad neither is particularly compelling. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: They're treading woefully familiar ground with The Back-Up Plan, a movie that could have used one. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: What's so disappointing about movies like The Back-up Plan -- which is to say every romantic comedy that's opened in the last two years -- is that they're risk averse. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: As romantic comedies go, this is the worst drivel I've seen since Nia Vardalos's I Hate Valentine's Day. Read more

Amy Biancolli, Houston Chronicle: Lopez does a fine job mortifying herself in pursuit of physical humor. Read more

Chris Vognar, Dallas Morning News: It's no big surprise that Lopez can still get laughs; she has a relaxed way with the camera that has mellowed and ripened over the years. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: As a romantic comedy, The Back-up Plan is friendly but also a bit drab. Its true subject isn't love so much as the comedy of pregnancy. Read more

Christine Champ, Film.com: Read more

Christy Lemire, Associated Press: Since they get together pretty early, the rest of the movie consists of contrived flare-ups that threaten to keep them apart. Read more

Martin Tsai, Newark Star-Ledger: Just as in sitcoms, every conflict and resolution often takes place here within the very same scene. Read more

Elizabeth Weitzman, New York Daily News: Lopez works visibly hard to keep things light, while O'Loughlin's flat performance suggests that he's either deeply uncomfortable or just struggling to hide his Australian accent. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: Lopez, appearing in her first rom-com since Monster-in-Law five years ago, is still a likable screen presence who throws herself into the movie's slapstick sequences with unwarranted enthusiasm. Read more

Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer: The Back-up Plan is cutesy and formulaic and has the approximate depth of a cookie sheet. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: It's dramatically vanilla, suffers from sit-com humor tendencies, lacks a compelling romance, and struggles to find a convincing performance. Read more

Richard Roeper, Richard Roeper.com: Why even bother? Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Jennifer Lopez has never looked better. That's about all she does here, is look better. She is talented and deserves more than this bird-brained plot about characters who have no relationship to life as it is lived by, you know, actual people. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: Stan and Zoe's fateful meeting is supposed to be screwball-awkward but instead comes off as skin-crawlingly uncomfortable, and despite the entirely conventional demands of the plot, the duo never seem remotely at ease with each other. Read more

Dana Stevens, Slate: I wouldn't go so far as to recommend this movie, but if you were tied down and forced to watch it, you wouldn't necessarily have to chew off your own leg to get away. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: The film isn't exactly a groundbreaking work of entertainment, but it passes the time engagingly. Read more

Kevin C. Johnson, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Jennifer Lopez's The Back-Up Plan is the most generic of romantic comedies. Read more

Liam Lacey, Globe and Mail: The Back-up Plan feels like a movie aimed right at the funny bones of four-year-olds. Read more

Linda Barnard, Toronto Star: It shows us Jenny from the Block is still flawlessly beautiful, while proving the theory that Hollywood is working on its last and only idea in the romantic-comedy genre. Read more

Mary F. Pols, TIME Magazine: A romantic comedy about single motherhood -- or mom-rom-com -- that manages to be both bland and offensive. Read more

Hank Sartin, Time Out: Read more

Cath Clarke, Time Out: If this is a comeback, let's hope J-Lo's got something else up her sleeve. Read more

Joshua Rothkopf, Time Out: Why call it a movie when it's really more of an extended, cutesy TV episode that ought to come with a laugh track and a vibrator? Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: This sitcom style exercise in planned parenthood is blandly predictable. If it were a cheese, it would be Velveeta. Read more

Brian Lowry, Variety: This tepid romantic comedy falls somewhere between a weak sitcom pilot and a second-tier Hallmark movie. Read more

Dan Kois, Washington Post: The Back-Up Plan's blunt honesty about the messiness of pregnancy is refreshing. It's a shame that the movie couldn't find a similarly refreshing way to tell its uninspired love story. Read more