Hola all. Massawyrm here.
Imagine if you will THE ULTIMATE GUY MOVIE MOMENT. One of your favorite action heroes sits astride a huge motorcycle, a shotgun slung over his shoulder and his mullet flowing in the breeze. He pulls up in front of a flaming building, surrounded by nameless goons who all look like the stuntmen from every other action movie you’ve seen this year. Our hero rips off a pithy one liner, and then begins unloading his shotgun into the goons, who all die with pained looks on their slow-motion shot faces. After dispensing with the trash, he fires off one last one-liner before a bikini clad model runs out from the fire, gives him a kiss and comments on all the wild sex they’ll be having in mere moments. Then she jumps on the back of the bike and with a smile and a wink at the camera, our hero rides off into the smoke of the night into TNT Movies For Guys Who Like Movies history.
Sounds FUCKING AWESOME, right? No. It really doesn’t. It sounds like everything we love about action movies done wrong. Andy Sidaris spent the better part of the80’s and 90’s making these kinds of fetid crap piles, taking everything the lowest common denominator likes in a film, throwing it into a cinematic blender and hitting frappe. Well, now I want you to imagine the feminine version of that movie – you know, the one in which every terrible cliché and stereotype we imagine to be in a “chick flick” is brought to bear. Got it in your head?
That movie is titled THE BACK-UP PLAN and it stars Jennifer Lopez.
Lopez plays Zoe - the sassy, beautiful 30-something that was once a powerful, successful business woman but walked away from that life to start a hip, SoHo pet store for rich, beautiful New Yorkers, staffed by adorable young 30-somethings (who typically play adorable young 20-somethings) whom hang on Lopez’s every word. She has it all, beauty, brains, and a large, affordable apartment in the city. The only thing she doesn’t have is a man. TYPICAL. And now she wants kids. So she’s getting herself a frozen pop.
But just moments after conceiving with a cup and baster, she meets Mr. Right. Oh no! What’s a girl to do?
Okay, so maybe Mr. Right isn’t the right word for this guy. Inhuman love puppet. That’s what this guy is. He’s a hunky, leather jacket wearing, six-pack abs bearing, salt of the earth goat farmer, who makes fine organic cheeses that he sells at a trendy farmer’s market in the city, all of which he makes on his picturesque upstate farm where he rides around topless on his tractor. His dream? To one day open a self-sustaining organic food market in the city, serving only food made within 30 miles of the city. But don’t be too threatened guys, because this man is not perfect. In fact, he has a DARK SECRET! OMG! He…now don’t tell anyone…goes to…night school. To better himself. I KNOW! RIGHT? What a loser.
So what’s the movie about? Lopez hiding her secret pregnancy? Nope, she spills that pretty early. Is it about him wondering if he wants to commit? Nope. He’s smitten; he’ll do anything for Princess Perfectbottom. So what the fuck is this film about? It’s about Zoe constantly fucking up their relationship with her psychotic OMG, you’re going to leave me, I have to leave you first bullshit, before getting talked back into staying with Mr. Yeah Right while he sits around twiddling his thumbs waiting for her to get her shit together. Because if there is one thing New York City is short on, it is beautiful women looking for handsome, witty, romantic, self-made men who own land upstate but come to hang out in the city.
And it just goes on and one and on like this for almost two god damned hours.
This is fantasy. Nothing more. There are no real complications to this film and Mr. Yeah Right has no perceivable flaws whatsoever. It’s simply a daydream about what a perfect life you could have while lying to you that there really is a perfect guy out there who will complete you in every way, despite how mentally unstable you are. This guy isn’t Ducky, the adorable, dorky lovesick puppy who would do anything for you. This is Captain Unbelievable, master of the impossible romantic evening. He can even make ruining the $600 dress (you just bought for your date) with a glass of red wine seem romantic and sweet.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Zoe’s pet shop is named HUDSON’S PETS. I think this script went off to Kate Hudson first. This is exactly the type of interminable crap sandwich pastiche that she always ends up starring in. If you’ve suffered through any of her romantic comedies, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea of what this is.
Making matters worse, the film also scrapes the bottom of the barrel looking for scatological humor. After two visual poo jokes, a number of vomiting scenes and even a pair of visual vaginal bleeding jokes, you begin to get the idea of the audience they are aiming at. That said, these jokes, no matter how gross they are, are all focused upon things moms are inured to. There isn’t a blowjob, pube or fart joke to be found in the whole thing, but they sure do fish a floater out of a kiddie wading pool, so I guess that accounts for something – if not simply serving as a metaphor for this whole god damned exercise.
Did the audience love it? They ate it up with a fucking spoon and asked for seconds. Comments outside were “Hilarious” and “Sooo funny!” My mother, God bless her, who adores and owns the entire Jennifer Lopez RomCom filmography, is going to love this. But odds are there is no reason for YOU to see it. Is it as bad as it looks? No. It is far, far worse. A two hour, cinematic frontal lobotomy that can damage your manhood just by proximity. Avoid it like it was an angry Ebola monkey. And let us never speak of it again.
Until next time friends,
Massawyrm
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