Holly Berenson is an up-and-coming caterer and Eric Messer is a promising network sports director. After a disastrous first date, the only thing they have in common is their dislike for each other and their love for their goddaughter, Sophie. But when they suddenly become all Sophie has in the world, Holly and Eric are forced to put their differences aside. Juggling career ambitions and competing social calendars, they'll have to find some common ground while living under one roof.

What can be said about Life as we Know It that could not be discerned from watching just thirty seconds of any of its trailers. The film is overly predictable, overly clichéd and like so many of its predecessors is hoping that it can pull at your heart strings just long enough to overlook so many of its flaws. For a film that is being packaged and sold as a comedy I think I might have only chuckled half a dozen times while watching and easily predicting the entire films plot well before they rolled out their over contrived plot twists.

The main problem with the film is that it’s a story that has been told a hundred times before and the film does nothing new or original to set its self aside from the pack of other films just like it. Then of course most of the movies funny moments were and are in the trailers meaning you have seen most of the comedy that the film has to offer well before actually having seen the film. For a movie that doesn’t have enough comedic moments to begin with they should have tried to keep them closer to the vest and not ruined them by running them in their trailers and tv spots.

With the comedy out the window the movie tries to set itself up as a drama and character piece. The problem there is that the drama there is overly contrived and the characters are such cookie cutter versions that it’s hard to care for them. The films glosses over the loss of the parents and the characters never seem to truly miss their friends and only care about their own shallow lives that are interrupted by the addition of their friends child. But of course by the end they come to love the child and have a heart warming turnaround that is so predictable I don’t even feel the need to let on that it might be a spoiler.

I am not a fan of Katherine Heigl as an actress because she shows so little depth and versatility in her characters that they all become very cookie cutter and it seems like a dozen different actress could do a better job. Josh Duhamel does a slightly better job but is sunk by the writers who of course made his character a womanizing cad that has to find redemption and love so that we will cheer for this to happen. Life as We Know It is a very weak film that is way to predictable and only worth a rental.

Grade: C-