Critics Consensus

Critics Consensus: The Back-Up Plan Is Second Rate

Plus, The Losers is fun but mindless, and Oceans is visually stunning.

by Tim Ryan | April 23, 2010 | Comments

This week at the movies, we’ve got pregnancy pratfalls (The Back-up Plan, starring Jennifer Lopez and Alex O’Loughlin); mercenary mayhem (The Losers, starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Zoe Saldana); and aquatic animals (The Disney nature documentary Oceans). What do the critics have to say?

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The Back-up Plan

Jennifer Lopez hasn’t been heard from in a little while, and the good news is that critics find her appealing in The Back-up Plan. The bad news is they find little else to like in this romantic comedy, which is sitcommy, predictable, and unconvincing. J Lo stars as a woman who’s given up on finding Mr. Right, so she decides to have a child via artificial insemination. Naturally, once she becomes pregnant, she meets the man of her dreams in Stan (Alex O’Loughlin). Can these crazy kids make it work? The pundits say The Back-Up Plan is contrived and artificial, taking an intriguing premise and bulldozing it with strained, weather-beaten gags and manufactured quirkiness. (Check out this week’s Total Recall, in which we count down Lopez ‘s best-reviewed movies.)

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The Losers

If you like your slam-bang action-fests to contain not a shred of subtext or intellectual pretention, The Losers is for you. But mindless explosions can only take you so far, and critics say this formulaic flick is pretty brainless stuff. Based upon the Vertigo Comics series of the same name, The Losers is the tale of a group of former black-ops types who vow to enact revenge against a rogue CIA agent after a double-cross – an agent who has designs on destabilizing various geopolitical entities. The pundits say The Losers has its moments of humor and white-knuckle intensity, but it’s a largely disposable film, and a mostly unmemorable one.

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Oceans

It’s Earth Day, and what better way to celebrate than by gazing upon the wonders of nature? If that’s your aim, critics say Oceans should do the trick. Co-directed by Jacques Perrin and Jacques Cluzaud – the team that brought you Winged Migration — Oceans scours the sea for images of the many creatures that call the oceans their home, some of which have rarely been captured on film. The pundits say while the images in Oceans may sometimes lack explanation, they’re so remarkable that viewers will likely find themselves immersed.

Also opening this week in limited release:

Best Worst Movie,a documentary about the notorious cult oddity Troll 2, is at 100 percent.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird, a wild Korean Western inspired by the works of Sergio Leone, is at 88 percent.
Behind the Burly Q, a doc about the history of burlesque shows, is at 71 percent.
Kenny Chesney: Summer in 3D, concert documentary featuring the country megastar, is at 60 percent.
Paper Man, starring Jeff Daniels and Ryan Reynolds in a dramedy about a novelist and his unlikely friendship with a teenager with a tragic past, is at 33 percent.
Boogie Woogie, starring Gillian Anderson and Christopher Lee in a satire of the art world, is at 20 percent.
In My Sleep, a thriller about a man who suffers from a disorder that makes him do things in his sleep, is at 20 percent.