‘What to Expect,’ Better Than Expected

The new film from director Kirk Jones (“Everybody’s Fine,” “Nanny McPhee”) comes “What to Expect When You’re Expecting,” based on the books by Heidi Murkoff. It has a star studded cast consisting of Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Anna Kendrick, Matthew Morrison, Chris Rock, and Dennis Quaid among other familiar faces. It tells the intermingling of stories of various couples who are going to have babies.

The film also focuses quite a bit on couples who have just recently had babies. The judgement free ‘dudes group,’ consisting of new dads played by Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon (“Reno 911!”), Amir Talai, and Rob Huebel. Hilariously dorky, they walk around in the park and vent about their new responsibilities and look forward to seeing Davis (played by “True Blood” star Joe Manganiello). One of the husbands from the main couples, Alex (Rodrigo Santoro) joins to get information on how to be a father to prepare on adopting a son with his wife (played by Jennifer Lopez).

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is a decent comedy that has a very specific niche audience, but at the same time relates to many different people. It has all sorts of situations with couples and getting pregnant and the process that it entails, with drama fused in with constant clever dialogue. It is also very fitting to right now, showing the secret lives of television stars from shows that are derived from “The Biggest Loser” and “Dancing with the Stars” – being Cameron Diaz and Matthew Morrison. Dennis Quaid steals the screen in every scene he’s in, making the movie even better.

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is a good rental of a movie, it is entertaining and better than you might expect. The trailer doesn’t do as much justice to the premise of the film than the title does, the only way to truly get the picture is just by seeing it. After last weekend, it debuted to $10.5 million putting it at number 5 in the box office ranks.

“What to Expect When You’re Expecting” is now playing in theaters everywhere.