Don't Expect Much

“WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING” is this summer’s version of “NEW YEAR’S EVE” or “VALENTINE’S DAY” – it’s a bunch of big named actors and actresses (some whose names are fading away into internet database archives) coming together to market a subpar film with solely their once big names.

There’s no point to even discussing this, but let me enlighten you so that you stay away by all means. The plot takes place over the course of just under a year or so in Atlanta, in a place where public movie screenings occur in the park, where the young and old gather and hipster food vendors come and make you happy with their simple yet delicious food. Everybody loves everybody, and of course considering it is Atlanta and it is in the South, nobody has a southern accent!

A collection of semi-hipster couples and soon-to-be couples realize they are having children – or, decide to get them from a third-world country. The film then goes through a tutorial of every possible scenario – good and bad – that a couple could go through with a pregnancy.

What are some of the things that happen to pregnant couples? Well, there’s the joy/ridiculousness of the woman testing positive, followed by the visits to the doctor’s office where they tell you about the potential for miscarriages and whether or not to cut the foreskin. Women then spend money needlessly on books, toys and clothes that won’t be worth anything less than a year after the birth – and if you want to know the rest, consult Google search capabilities.

Call me a cynical person, but if I wanted to get a book about information about pregnancy I wouldn’t have gone to a movie theater – and I would have chosen a much more well-authored guide to what happens when you have a baby in actual textual form. Talking about the possibility of your kid eating cigarette butts? Come on, I think even a four year old could understand that if you put them in the trash the baby won’t get to them.

As for the acting, it’s… atrocious. I don’t even feel obligated to list off and commemorate the whole cast, as not one single performance in the film is noteworthy. I always had a thing for Cameron Diaz, too. From her being a blonde, to being an admitted marijuana smoker to be being Mary from “THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT…,” she always intrigued me. Now, she’s… Jacked? And, more importantly, she’s acting bad movies.

And Anna Kendrick… Why did you sell out? I loved you oh so much in “SCOTT PILGRIM” and “50/50” and “UP IN THE AIR” and after the success of those movies it truly baffles me why you didn’t ride that wave and take other roles with GREAT directors. Instead, you chose to work with Kirk Jones (Who is that again?) and Jennifer Lopez, whose last feature film was “THE BACK UP PLAN” (What was that again? Wait, she’s alive?).

The whole composition of the entire movie was just horrible. Nothing about the film at all was inventive, except maybe for the fact that it enlightened me that there are free outdoor film screenings going on around the country. The modern pop soundtrack accompanying this piece of crap might have ruined some of the songs in it that I actually liked for the rest of my life.

The funniest part of the movie is probably watching Dwayne Wade cameo as himself on Diaz’s character’s show, “Celebrity Dance Factor” (which is in its 15^th season) before the opening credits of the film even begin – and it wasn’t even that funny. With that being said, avoid “WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING” by all means necessary if you care about actor and actress integrity.