MOVIE: THE BACK UP PLAN

Here’s a clever filmmaking trick: when you know you’ve got an epic fail of a movie on your hands, make the first twenty-five minutes unbearably terrible, so the next seventy-odd seem, by comparison, quite okay. The Back Up Plan attempts to employ this strategy, and it would have worked a treat except the film stars J Lo. You know what they say, “Fool me once, Jennifer Maid In Manhattan Lopez, shame on you. Fool me twice …” As internet-prodigy-cum-pet-store-owner Zoe, Lopez is wholly unlikable, even when she stumbles about awkwardly with chicken in her hair and orgasms embarrassingly early in a cheese shed (because that would usually engender sympathy in an audience, right?) This coupled with a startling lack of chemistry with co-star Alex O’Loughlin (Stan, the cheesemaker), and a barrage of badly-timed slapstick from beginning to end, means The Back Up Plan errs on the side of unwatchable. Don’t be fooled by the acting chops she ain’t got. (LH)