Second Act 2 stars
Jennifer Lopez is back for another romantic comedy, something she does so well based on previous efforts like Maid in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner and Shall We Dance. Unfortunately, the story isn’t quite up to her talents in this Peter Segal directed film. Maya (Lopez) is single, has a boyfriend (Milo Ventimiglia) and is a talented employee who knows the products working in a big box store. She is up for a promotion but gets passed over for a man with a better education who she finds difficult to respect. Maya is encouraged by her friends to find something better and applies for something out reach on Madison Avenue. One of her friends happens to be very tech savvy and he sets up a fake job profile for her much more attractive to the Madison Avenue execs. She lands the big consultant job and settles in for the huge challenges ahead. It is then that things take an unexpected twist and one of the greatest coincidences takes place that changes the course of the lives involved. I won’t go into it here, but suffice it to say some past relationships resurface in surprise fashion. The most interesting time I had was trying to identify the many supporting actors that appeared in the movie that I immediately recognized. Leah Remini is Maya’s best friend Joan. Vanessa Hudgens of High School Musical is a product developer and the daughter of the company executive (Treat Williams from What Happens in Vegas). Charlyne Yi from Knocked Up and Paper Heart is one of Maya’s assistants. The usually evil Dave Foley from the Middle and The New Adventures of Old Christine is here in a typical role. Larry Miller from the Christopher Guest/Eugene Levy comedies is the manager at the big box store. And Annaleigh Ashford of masters of Sex shows up as one of the employees hoping to take down Maya in the competition for best new product. Things get very tense for the main character in this comedy, but things will work out in the end as they inevitably do. See Second Act if you are a Jennifer Lopez fan like me, but otherwise I am sure you can find other more interesting films.