Quartile rating: 5.5/10 · 1 rating
When Zoe tires of looking for Mr. Right, she decides to have a baby on her own. But on the day she's artificially inseminated, she meets Stan, who seems to be just who she's been searching for all her life. Now, Zoe has to figure out how to make her two life's dreams fit with each other.
The Back-Up Plan is a formulaic romantic comedy that leans heavily on well-worn genre conventions without adding much of its own. The premise of meeting Mr. Right on the same day as artificial insemination has some comic potential, but the script squanders it with predictable beats and contrived misunderstandings. Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin have moderate chemistry but neither is given strong material to work with. The cinematography is competent but thoroughly unremarkable, indistinguishable from dozens of other glossy romcoms of the era. The film scores lowest on novelty—it recycles familiar romcom tropes without a distinctive voice, tone, or execution to set it apart. The ending resolves exactly as expected with no surprises.