Zoe is a successful, educated business owner that has everything she wants in her life except a family. She decides not to wait for Mr. Right and instead get artificially inseminated to make a baby. But around the next corner she finds a Mr. Right named Stan, who she falls madly in love with. Will he stay with her when she has somebody else’s baby?
Lopez looks good in the movie-stylishly dressed and sexy-but her high heels and off-the-shoulder tops just don’t make sense when her job at the pet store often involves shoveling dog poop. Marcus proves to be an overly metrosexual farmer, too pretty to be a work-a-day manual laborer. Ultimately, O’Loughlin is unremarkable and forgettable as the other half of the couple. One of many predictable scenes includes an off-road moment when Zoe ogles the shirtless farmer and drives into a tree. There are also several gross-out moments in this rom-com, such as an overly revealing 3-year-old breast feeding scene, a water-breaking accident in a conga line, and a none-too-subtle excrement in a birthing pool moment. These scenes are meant to be played for laughs but don’t get anything more than a few “ewwh gross” exclamations.
Zoe’s constant whining and self-doubts over whether Stan loves her will make the more secure women viewers wish Stan would simply move on. After all, if Stan’s sticking around Zoe during a pregnancy for a child that isn’t his doesn’t prove love, than a top-of-the-line custom stroller he buys her should. Rather than trying to watch an unnatural cross between a sweet rom-com and a raunchy adult comedy, simply rent the far superior "Wedding Planner" and "Knocked Up" instead. "The Back-Up Plan" screenwriters obviously did.
Rated PG-13 for sexual content including references, some crude material and language.
