What to Expect When You're Expecting

If it had stopped wasting time on slapstick moments like some weird hybrid of Love, Actually and Bridesmaids-with-bellies, it might actually have painted a vivid and perceptive portrait of parenthood.

Admitting that pregnancy blows sometimes is de rigeur these days and nothing to freak out about. There's nothing to see here, people. Come to think of it, "nothing to see here" could work as an alternate tagline to this movie, too.

Although it's meant to be a comedy, did I laugh? I might never have stopped but for one small thing, which I feel obliged to mention: I never started. I sat there stony-faced like a stone, with a face.

Those who don't have children would find it rather agonising, while those who do might not wish to pay a babysitter for the pleasure of seeing a film about nappies and epidurals.

Technically the genre isn't beneath contempt. But this movie is.

Someday Hollywood will think of women as more than fallopian tubes in heels; until then, we're stuck with this kind of project.

The few moments of cuteness and heart can't make up for the rest of the parts that just plain suck.

You'll undoubtedly enjoy Jones' What to Expect When You're Expecting far more if you accept it for what it is -- a popcorn movie: warm, fluffy and immediately forgettable.

Diaz's plotline seems to revolve solely around an argument with Morrison over the merits of circumcision. She's pro-cut. He's fanatically anti-cut. Clearly, as is the film's editor.

What to Expect When You're Expecting provides a snapshot of contemporary anxieties about imminent parenthood, but it may be more worthwhile as a document for future pop culture scholars to use to understand what was trendy in 2012.