I can't even be arsed to give this movie a "full review" I didn't really want to see it but my mom did so, being a good son, I took her to see it. She bought me nachos.
It's a... "good" movie but that's about it. It plays like a melodramatic episode of some Lifetime Drama series, or movie of the week or something. Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman (playing the dullest character to ever walk the planet) are platonic friends. Aniston feels the time-bomb ticking in her thirty-something uterus so she decides to get pregnant by a donor, through a folly of mistakes, drugs, and alcohol the douchey donor's sperm is rendered unusable so Bateman replaces it with his own, unbenknownst to Aniston who after the conception takes place (remarkable in of itself) and she decides to move back home, half way across the country, only keeps in contact with Bateman over the intervening seven years via email and the occasional phonecall.
This brings us to present day when Aniston moves back to NYC with the soon-to-be six year old in tow. Being best friends, who've somehow never flown to see each other at all over the last seven years, she quickly re-connects with Bateman and introduces him to her son. It turns out the kid isn't just Bateman, Bateman somehow cloned himself into Aniston's uterus.
The kid, despite never being around Bateman his entire life, has picked up all of Bateman's mannerisms, hypochondria, and other neuroses and character oddities. Which, sort of, touches on the movie's biggest flaw, Bateman's character is a bore. Hell, Keanu Reeves has more screen presence than this guy, fuck the sets have more screen presence. Infact, I think it's very possible that the lighting stand-in dummy for Bateman somehow made it into the final cut.
Anyway, Aniston still believes the kid belongs to her donor, whom she's trying to form a relationship with the recently divorced man, Bateman, though happenstance and the usual cliched Hollywood version of amnesia, realizes it too and works to form a bond with the kid as well as his inner stuggles to be a part of Aniston's life. The two have no real love-interest chemistry and the idea that either of them is interested in the other romanticly isn't telegraphed at all.
The scenes between Bateman and the kid are actually pretty good and the kid out-acts Bateman at every turn but the whole damn thing is contrived and cliched. The whole movie feels like someone in Scriptwriting 101 wrote and it got produced because the producers owned the kid money.
Aniston is good in it, for what she's given to work with, but it's really time she stops playing "Rachel" in all of her roles and branches out and takes on more daring roles.
As for Bateman? Somewhere a stripmall, locally owned, men's clothing store is missing one of its live mannequins, or maybe one of the inert ones. It's really hard to tell.
I give the movie a generous Straight-C as I rarely hand out anything lower than that except in the most extreme of circumstances. It's honestly not a movie you're missing if you never see it, not a movie you'll remember if you do see it and probably not even one that'll you'll say "Huh, I've been meaning to check that one out!" when you see it on Lifetime or some other obscure cable channel on some Sunday afternoon in 10 years.
Also, given the premise of the movie and the rating it's a bit stupid how it dances around calling Bateman's contribution what it is: SPERM!. A kid shouldn't be watching this movie and if he did his ears wouldn't burn off from hearing the word "sperm." Jeff Goldbloom also has a fairly small role but is entertaining in its own Goldbloomian way.
This a movie that redefines the word "Meh."
It's a... "good" movie but that's about it. It plays like a melodramatic episode of some Lifetime Drama series, or movie of the week or something. Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman (playing the dullest character to ever walk the planet) are platonic friends. Aniston feels the time-bomb ticking in her thirty-something uterus so she decides to get pregnant by a donor, through a folly of mistakes, drugs, and alcohol the douchey donor's sperm is rendered unusable so Bateman replaces it with his own, unbenknownst to Aniston who after the conception takes place (remarkable in of itself) and she decides to move back home, half way across the country, only keeps in contact with Bateman over the intervening seven years via email and the occasional phonecall.
This brings us to present day when Aniston moves back to NYC with the soon-to-be six year old in tow. Being best friends, who've somehow never flown to see each other at all over the last seven years, she quickly re-connects with Bateman and introduces him to her son. It turns out the kid isn't just Bateman, Bateman somehow cloned himself into Aniston's uterus.
The kid, despite never being around Bateman his entire life, has picked up all of Bateman's mannerisms, hypochondria, and other neuroses and character oddities. Which, sort of, touches on the movie's biggest flaw, Bateman's character is a bore. Hell, Keanu Reeves has more screen presence than this guy, fuck the sets have more screen presence. Infact, I think it's very possible that the lighting stand-in dummy for Bateman somehow made it into the final cut.
Anyway, Aniston still believes the kid belongs to her donor, whom she's trying to form a relationship with the recently divorced man, Bateman, though happenstance and the usual cliched Hollywood version of amnesia, realizes it too and works to form a bond with the kid as well as his inner stuggles to be a part of Aniston's life. The two have no real love-interest chemistry and the idea that either of them is interested in the other romanticly isn't telegraphed at all.
The scenes between Bateman and the kid are actually pretty good and the kid out-acts Bateman at every turn but the whole damn thing is contrived and cliched. The whole movie feels like someone in Scriptwriting 101 wrote and it got produced because the producers owned the kid money.
Aniston is good in it, for what she's given to work with, but it's really time she stops playing "Rachel" in all of her roles and branches out and takes on more daring roles.
As for Bateman? Somewhere a stripmall, locally owned, men's clothing store is missing one of its live mannequins, or maybe one of the inert ones. It's really hard to tell.
I give the movie a generous Straight-C as I rarely hand out anything lower than that except in the most extreme of circumstances. It's honestly not a movie you're missing if you never see it, not a movie you'll remember if you do see it and probably not even one that'll you'll say "Huh, I've been meaning to check that one out!" when you see it on Lifetime or some other obscure cable channel on some Sunday afternoon in 10 years.
Also, given the premise of the movie and the rating it's a bit stupid how it dances around calling Bateman's contribution what it is: SPERM!. A kid shouldn't be watching this movie and if he did his ears wouldn't burn off from hearing the word "sperm." Jeff Goldbloom also has a fairly small role but is entertaining in its own Goldbloomian way.
This a movie that redefines the word "Meh."
