No.202 : What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012)

What to Expect When You're Expecting at the IMDb

The title and premise should give you some clues but for the slow witted, like me, this is a total chick flick that will drain your will to live as it meanders through two hour’s of  feelings and sentimentality.

We meet a variety of couple in various situations who are either pregnant or trying for a baby. If you have turned off already you’re a smarter man than me! We open with a celebrity dance contest with reality show host Cameron Diaz winning the day with her partner, Mr Schu off ‘Glee’. The audience suspect they are sleeping together, speculation that is confirmed when Diaz pukes in the winner’s trophy - she’s up the duff!

Elsewhere photographer Jennifer Lopez is trying in vain to have a baby and instead plans to adopt from Ethiopia. In a familiar scene they try to clean up their act to impress the woman from the adoption agency, but don’t worry; she’s lovely.

We also get Elizabeth Banks as a baby guru having her first child with the dad being the son of Dennis Quaid who is a competitive race car driver who is also expecting twins with his young trophy wife. Down the cast list the young girl off ‘Up in the Air’ is pregnant after a one night stand and Chris Rock is running a dads’ baby walking group in the park.

So far, so dreadful, but don’t worry; we have minor traumas and growth coming our way too!

Of course I’m not the target audience for this kind of stuff but it was mawkish rubbish with nothing to say apart from a lot of twaddle about babies and bonding. There was a miscarriage that was glossed over quickly and a near death on the table giving birth, but for the most part it was high fiving, life affirming stuff that seemed an exercise in exploiting the mumsy set.

Of the couples I’d probably go with Quaid’s as best mainly because he was boorish and not tuned into the paternal vibe. OK he did have some growth with his son who faded in the shadow of his famous father, but Quaid came across as likeable whereas the son was just a wimp.

Most shameful was the once edgy comic Chris Rock who must have cringed with every schmaltzy line he excreted out. His plot strand was very thin with the union of new dads idea poorly formed and terribly executed.

Diaz and Banks were OK with Banks probably taking the laurels, as they were, after her rant about how crappy pregnancy was becoming that old movie staple; the internet sensation.

There was some overlap with Lopez’s photographer photographing Quaid’s wife and Quaid’s son being on Diaz’s weight loss show but these were perfunctory at best and added nothing to the mix which was as weak as school dance orange drink.

Overall this was probably a success in what it intended itself to be. There was never going to be a shoot out or a car chase but they might have offered something for the dedicated ‘W’ movie reviewer. OK Cameron Diaz in a red sequined bikini but that was it.

Best Bit : Diaz shakes it   7/23

No.99 : What Dreams May Come (1998)

What Dreams May Come at the IMDb

Robin Williams stars in this ambitious and somewhat sentimental drama about a man searching the realms of heaven and hell for his lost wife.

The film opens with Williams, laughably youthed up with a floppy wig, boating on Lake Geneva. He bumps paddles and later uglies with the lovely Annabella Sciorra, and the pair marry before the opening credits have finished. They soon produce two boys but their idyllic life is shattered when the two lads die in an off screen car accident. Williams devotes himself to his medical work but is himself killed by a crashing car five years later.

His spirit is at first lost, visiting his family and own funeral, but he is soon guided to the afterlife by Cuba Gooding Jnr who is the youthful form of an aged doctor who had mentored Williams in his formative years. At first Heaven is great and he is reunited with his sons and family dog in a realised painting done by his wife. Things sour however when he learns that his grief stricken wife has killed herself and has been cast into Hell.

Not taking this lying down Williams seeks out Max Von Sydow who knows the way to Hell and offers to pitch in. The task is seemingly pointless however as memories are wiped in Hell and unless he can convince her to leave they both must live in the devilish realm for all eternity.

This was a really interesting film chock full of great ideas and stunning visuals and only a sentimentality overload prevented it from attaining ‘great’ status. The best part of the film is easily the visions of Heaven and Hell. It is quickly established that heaven is whatever you want it to be and transport is simply a matter of closing your eyes. With these two rules locked down the director has free rein to create lavish and stunning worlds, a task he completes with some relish. Williams initial Heaven , a living painting, was captured to great effect with puddles of paint lying around and painted houses becoming fully interactive three dimensional places.

His later journeys had a more ’classic’ Heaven vibe with people flying around and not a lump of dog shit to be seen. The best parts were however reserved for Hell with a cracking sea of white bodies dragging down their ship followed by a field of heads as far as you could see all begging for assistance and denying the crimes that had cast them there.

The plot was pretty straight forward although there were more changing faces than the first ‘Mission Impossible’ film to keep you guessing. Heaven allows you to take whatever form you wish and the message of ‘it’s what underneath that counts’ is certainly hammered home as our preconceptions are dashed as soon as they’re formed, almost every time.

The performances weren’t great with the always sentimental and blubbery Williams on standard form as was Von Sydow who was still doing his Chief Judge Fargo from ‘Judge Dredd’. Some of the love dripping dialogue was a bit hard to take with the love lasting for all eternity message the main theme for the film. At nearly two hours it is a big ask of the audience to put up with the sobbing Williams for that long, but the cracking sets and effects more than compensate.

I imagine this film with its idealised visions of the afterlife will offer a lot of comfort to the bereaved and it did well to stay away from a religious tone. It didn’t give me the shivers in the way a film like ‘Ghost’ did at the end but, although predictable, the happy ending was no less welcome for that.

Best Bit : Good Crop of Heads This Year

‘W’ Score : 15/23