Weak script lets down 'The Back Up Plan'

Director: Alan Poul

Cast: Jennifer Lopez, Michaela Watkins, Alex O’Loughlin, Anthony Anderson

Cert: 15

Lopez returns to our screens after a five-year lay-off in this so-so rom-com that tries, with limited success, to focus on love, support and having a baby first and a meaningful relationship afterwards.

Zoe (Lopez) isn’t getting any younger what with Mr Right nowhere in sight and, therefore, no kiddies on the way. Her answer is insemination but on the way from the operation she meets handsome, charming, go-getting cheese farmer Stan (O’Loughlin) … Mr Right, and then some.

When she tells him that she’s pregnant we enter a world of doubt, surrounded by those well-worked awkward moments during the subsequent courtship, nicked from countless previous rom-coms.

The plus is that there is certainly a screen chemistry between Lopez and O’Loughlin but the writing, while bringing us some funny moments, is generally weak and several promising plot threads are too quickly abandoned.

It’s not a bad film, just not very good.

Star Rating: 2/5