Big Screen Blurb: What to Expect When You're Expecting

I had no idea that this was a horror flick. Yeah, when Val mentioned What to Expect When You're Expecting, it was supposed to be a comedy. Admittedly, for most, it would be. Not for me. Yeah, I'm weird, but nothing freaks my freak more than pregnancy and babies. To add to the nightmare, twenty minutes into the movie, the young girl of the high-school-ish couple in front of us decides to sit on her boyfriend's lap! It was as if the nightmare had gone IMAX and 3-D in one freakish swoop.

In What to Expect When You're Expecting, you see a series of unrelated vignettes all centered around someone getting knocked up--whether they want to be or not. You've got the reality fitness show star, Jules (Cameron Diaz) and her unexpected pregnancy with her beau. You've got the very much planned, but still unexpected pregnancy from Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) and her hubby. You've got the young PYT Rosie (Anna Kendrick) getting unexpectedly knocked up on the hood of a Honda. You've got Skyler being impregnated by her old dog hubby (Dennis Quaid). Finally, you've got Holly (Jennifer Lopez) who takes the adoption track, but experiences equal amounts of drama along the way to obtaining  her lil care package. Yadayadayada we experience the ups and downs of pregnant life alongside the many characters, sharing the laughs, the frustration, the drama, the...well, I could go on and on--these chicks are pregnant, right!

What to Expect When You're Expecting has it's moments, but there are simply not enough funny moments to carry a two-hour flick through the myriad of characters. I'll go with 2.5 Stars--on the southern side of okay. Yeah, it's true, pregnant women and their freakish bellies...their wild hormones...their insane mood swings...their use of the human growing inside them to serve as an excuse for any level of craziness...yeah...they've always totally freaked my freak. That withstanding, none of those provide the basis for my objection to this flick. There's just too much going on here. There are too many vignettes and too many characters to ever really develop any of them, much less connect with any couple. Yeah, the characters are likable, but this slightly watered down version of New Years Eve and Valentine's Day, just lacks in the character development department.

Sure, there are some funny moments, but just as many 'roll your eyes' moments, which leaves a rather flat overall experience. They use irony as a subtle form of humor, while using slapstick, a more in-your-face form of humor. Some of it works, some of it...well, not so much. I was hoping for a combination of a Bridesmaids and Crazy Stupid Love comedic experience and ended up with a combo Rosemary's Baby-Father of the Bride Part II. Don't get me wrong, I loved Father of the Bride, but in combination with Rosemary's Baby, it would've been a frightening ride. So was this--one part funny, two parts drama, one part slapstick; it all adds up to a lot of lightly developed characters and situations. Scaling back and removing a little star power would have been helpful. After all, add six more characters to Crazy Stupid Love and you don't have the same entertaining experience. More than likely, you've got a jumbled mess...similar to what you've got with this movie.

Go BIG? Nope...certainly not in my estimation. Of course, if the goal had been horror instead of comedy, I'd say do it. Then again, my horror continued after the flick when I realized the young "high-school"-ish couple sitting on top of each other in the row in front of me, was actually a young middle-school couple who were probably experiencing a foreshadowing of their very near future. Yikes!

True...OUT!