It’s said that the only reason women are capable of giving birth more than once is that they forget about the pains of labor once it’s all over. Here’s hoping that audiences unfortunate enough to see “What to Expect When You’re Expecting” undergo a similar bout of amnesia.
This insipid comedy uses the best-selling pregnancy guide as a jumping-off point for multiple overlapping storylines, almost all of them banal, trite and hackneyed. Strangely enough, the only memorable moments of this mess come when things get serious, despite the track record of director Kirk Jones, who demonstrated most recently with “Everything’s Fine” that he’s not particularly good with all-star ensembles or with sentimentality.