I Think I’ll Just Adopt, Thanks.

DISCLAIMER: For someone who claims to be a Chick Flick Connoisseur, I have to be honest… I was a bit naughty and chose to see The Avengers and MIB 3 before seeing What To Expect When You’re Expecting. Although I don’t regret that choice, I do regret having to wait so long in between posts because of it. My apologies!

What To Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)
Chick Flick Rating: ♥ ♥ ½ (2.5/5)
Film Rating: ★ ★ (2/5)
Boyfriend friendly: It’s an easy way to get him to quit bitching about wearing condoms.

Let me preface this review by saying that I have a serious fear of pregnancy. I blame my Dad, which I know is a weird thing to say in context, but he’s the one who had me watch Alien when I was only 5 years old. I’m not sure if it was his intent – though I wouldn’t put it past him – but all it took was that one scene where the alien rips itself out of Kane’s chest and Daddy never had to worry about his little girl ending up on 16 & Pregnant. Don’t get me wrong, I want to have kids some day… but I kind of just hope they’ll appear out of thin air because pregnancy really scares the living shit out of me. After a baby is born? I love them, they’re adorbs. While in the belly? They’re creepy naked mole-rat looking aliens. And those horrible new 3D ultrasounds that are flooding my Facebook newsfeed (despite the fact I keep reporting them as spam) aren’t helping me any.

What To Expect When You’re Expecting, based on the self-help book of the same name, follows five couples during those nine terrifying beautiful months before the baby arrives. Jules (Cameron Diaz) is a celebrity fitness guru who gets pregnant by her boyfriend, and partner on a Dancing-With-The-Stars-esque show, Evan (Matthew Morrison). Their clashing schedules are nothing compared to their clashing personalties – as they disagree on seemingly every aspect of child rearing, from name choices to the morality of circumcision. Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) is a parenting author and owner of a children’s boutique, The Breast Choice. After years of trying, Wendy and her husband Gary (Ben Falcone) finally get pregnant only to find that their “happy glow period” is marred with every side effect in the book: nausea, gas, itchiness, hemrrhoids. Not to mention that Gary’s Dad (Dennis Quaid), a highly competitive race car driver, and his young trophy wife (Brooklyn Decker) are also expecting… and they’re having twins. Photographer Holly (J. Lo) and music producer Alex (the hot Brazilian model from Love Actually) are all set and ready to adopt an Ethiopian baby… until they get the call saying that one is actually available. And finally, Rosie (Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Chace Crawford) are rival food truck chefs whose one night stand has one big consequence.

Ensemble films are always tricky because there are so many killer cast members and so little screen time. Certain films, like Love Actually, Rat Race, and even the more recent Think Like A Man, pull it off and enable the audience to feel like they have gotten a fairly even dose of each character. Other films, like He’s Just Not That Into You, Valentine’s Day, and New Year’s Eve, cut back and forth between the characters so haphazardly that the second you begin to care about one story line, you’re onto the next one. This movie fell somewhere in between. The pacing was smooth and each character had their fair share of screen time, but they didn’t necessarily make all that screen time count. Honestly, it was like for every awesome or original character/circumstance the writers slipped in, they also had to put an equally annoying or clichéd one. For example: Elizabeth Banks was hysterical as the anguished pregnant woman who pees her pants in public more than once, but Brooklyn Decker was completely irritating and one-dimensional as her ditzy step-mom-in-law. Surprisingly, I was not all that convinced by the performance of Jennifer Lopez (a real life mom), but was totally sold on the one by Cameron Diaz (not a real life mom). Diaz was over-the-top but entertaining as the concerned mommy-to-be who doesn’t want her baby daddy calling any of the shots (who can blame her?). On the other hand, Lopez also called all of the shots regarding her baby, but it was so melodramatic and I don’t know if her and her husband actually liked each other (but their baby shower was AWESOME). And sometimes Anna Kendrick’s role choices just baffle me. She’s such a great actress, yet she chooses to do movies like this and Twilight. Maybe she just wanted to M.O. with Chace Crawford? I guess I can’t blame her for that. BTDubs– what is up with all of these food truck chef characters? The last THREE films I’ve reviewed have had them! Is that the only trendy occupation in the world right now?

In all seriousness, the best part of the movie actually had nothing to do with the moms at all. When I first saw the WTEWYE “Dudes Group” trailer a few months back, it felt a bit off and completely catered to the wrong demographic. Now, I totally get it. Led by Chris Rock, this clueless group of dads don’t just deserve their own trailer – they deserve their own movie. (I am also happy to report that even though a lot of their humor is given away in that trailer, there are plenty of funny lines that aren’t. Yay!)

What To Expect When You’re Expecting definitely had its fair share of belly-laughing moments. There were also a ton of times that I didn’t laugh, but every single parent in the theater did… so I should probably revisit this movie at some point in the way distant future when I have children (who, of course, have all appeared out of thin air). I just wish they had decided to take a few more risks with it! Instead of the subpar storylines about an old dude and his young wife, or two food truck rivals who have a one night stand, why not try something a bit more modern like same-sex parents, a pregnant teenager, or even a man who is excited about having a child, but a woman who is the hesitant one? There wasn’t even an interracial relationship in the bunch! They paired the Brazilian dude with Jennifer Lopez! Like, come on people – how obvious is that?

Bottom line: What To Expect When You’re Expecting is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. Entertaining, sometimes laugh out loud funny, but you’re life doesn’t really change from seeing it… At least not as much as your body changes when that alien-cyclops-fetus begins forming inside of you and takes control of your entire being.

In honor of the upcoming Prometheus, which is an Alien prequel in case you didn’t know, I decided it would be fitting to mash up the audio of the Prometheus trailer with the visuals of the WTEWYE trailer. I call it: What To Expect When You’re Expecting Prometheus. Enjoy!-