Don't expect much

Can’t imagine anyone expected better, though I did expect Chris Rock to endear himself the way he does. The real surprise was that, watching this rom-com study of the miracle of life, I mostly thought of “The Avengers.”

The reasonable comparison is “Knocked Up,” but the “The Avengers” makes more sense. “Avengers” is better, of course, but it interests me that “What to Expect” has so similar a skeleton in pursuing the diverging and entangling arcs of more than enough characters.

Sad, then, that none of the 10 stars achieves much. The exception is Ben Falcone as Gary, an expecting dentist bedeviled by his competitive father, whose balance of confidence and human mannerism were another surprise.

Movies like this are often most alive at their peripheries, and here Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon (“The State”), Wendi McLendon-Covey (“Reno 911”) and Rob Huebel (“Human Giant”) all charm. However, the charm’s too infrequent and the movie’s too long.

By Zech Scott