There was a time when Steven Martin was hilarious, but that was so long ago that I think most fans don’t even remember. Recent years have seen the funny man making some rather bland and uninspired films that are truly devoid of any laughs, and he’s even managed to get a number of fans of the original Pink Panther films quite upset by starring in yet another unnecessary Hollywood remake. You may not know this, but another film that Martin starred in, Cheaper by the Dozen was yet another remake, and the huge success of the original has prompted a sequel.

In the grand scheme of things, Cheaper by the Dozen was originally based on the book of the same name when it was made back in 1950, and the true follow-up in terms of both novel and film was Bells on Their Toes, however instead of going that route, the choice was to make something completely new, and apparently something where laughter wasn’t the key ingredient. The Baker family (not the original names in the book or 1950’s film, and I’m sure someone though it was clever so you would have a “Baker’s dozen”) returns once again. Life is quickly changing for Kate (Bonnie Hunt) and Tom (Martin). Their daughter Lorraine (Hilary Duff) has just graduated from high school and has accepted a job in New York City, something dad isn’t too keen on. Their eldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) is getting closer to giving birth to her first child while her husband Bud (Jonathan Bennett) has accepted a new job himself, though that will move them to Houston. Tom decides that with family moving, the best thing to do is get the clan together to a vacation on the lake they used to visit.

The vacation quickly turns ugly however when Tom finds that his nemesis Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy) still frequents that lake as well, however now he’s managed to buy up much of the property. Baker and Murtaugh have always been competitive, especially against one another, and Murtaugh’s lavish home can’t compete with modest vacation home that Tom has rented. The fact that Jimmy now has a younger and quite attractive new wife, Sarina (Carmen Electra) isn’t helping matters either, and eventually the game of who can outdo who turns to the two families having to compete against one another in the annual games held on the lake, a contest that Murtaugh has always been the champion of.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 is a family comedy, at least that’s what it is billed as, but I’ve seen family comedies in the past that were actually funny, and this certainly isn’t one of them. The script suffers from some very bad attempts at humor based on both Tom and Jimmy trying to get the best of each other as well as the Baker children always getting into some kind of trouble. It could have been the right combination for comedy, but that doesn’t end up being the case at all, and although the movie tries very hard to ground itself in ideas that could be quite feasible, they simply are the type of thing that you might find yourself thinking, “gee, I guess you really would have had to be there for this to be laughable.” The television series Grounded for Life is a perfect example of family troubles made hilarious that work, but Cheaper by the Dozen 2 fails almost from the very beginning.

There are also far too many cast members in this film to really make it the type of film that is easy to stay with. There are twelve children on the Baker side, many of whom are given precious little screen time. Aside from the older children, the only one who really gets a moderate amount of camera time is Sarah (Alyson Stoner) since she’s getting to the age where she’s starting to discover boys, and dad isn’t happy about his little girl growing up. In the Murtaugh family, there are either children, though only two of them really are seen at any length, and the problem that we soon find is that dad is a little too hard on his children, forcing them to study in the middle of summer simply so they can be the best students they can possibly be, and when he’s not too busy living vicariously through his offspring, Jimmy is trying to make future plans for them. Overall, you end up with a cast of 25 principal characters with a mere 6 or so really being at the center of attention, and with so many, it seems that this might have been better done as a television series instead of devoting a mere 90-minutes to family affairs. It’s possible that you could chalk it up to some poorly done script writing on Sam Harpers part, the same person responsible for other bland comedies such as Just Married and Rookie of the Year, but I don’t think that the blame falls only to him alone.

The general idea of “let’s throw in a bunch of cute kids to draw in an audience” really shouldn’t play itself off as the decided factor to see this film. Again, this is a family comedy, and though it might be innocent enough for children, I think that for the most part, even they will find that the laughs are few and far between. If your idea of funny is a guy in a wheelchair getting knocked into a lake a few times or seeing an unruly dog create mayhem at an afternoon brunch, this is probably the best thing. For most however, they are seeking bigger laughs, and this is a movie that will not deliver them at all. Instead, it quickly becomes a nearly insulting film that is trying only to capitalize on the success of the 2003’s remake of Cheaper by the Dozen and is again another half-witted attempt to remake a film that might have been good 50 years ago, but doesn’t fit in quite as well with cinema today. Of course, for parents that are looking for something without sexual content, violence, profanity (or comedy) this is the perfect thing. I even saw one online review written by a younger film buff that stated that this film was “more funnier” so I guess if you’re also looking to drop you children’s command of the English language, more funnier will work more better than it should.

The additional material found with this release is just as unimaginative as the film itself. If you want the inside information, you can watch the film again with commentary by the films director, Adam Shankman, but this does precious little to improve the quality of the film. There is also a look at the casting of the movie which was broadcast on the Fox Movie Channel if you really are dying to learn how the cast was selected. There are also two different theatrical trailers for Cheaper by the Dozen 2 included, but all told, there is nothing that makes this release stand out in any unique ways.

I guess we’re destined to see Steve Martin continue to associate himself with trite comedies that are either horrible remakes or geared so much towards family that jokes aren’t a necessary part of the equation . . . . or both in this case. The only thing that is cheaper is the effort to make you laugh, and believe me, you’ll not find a dozen laughs in this film, and the only real enjoyment, at least for me, came from watching the pack rat in the film, and it happens to be the best actor out of all of them (mainly because it has no lines, though I bet if someone would have though of making it talk, it would have been done.) There are easily a dozen other family comedies that you could grab for the enjoyment of your brood, and Cheaper by the Dozen 2 shouldn’t be on that list at all.

-mike-
 

Directed By: Adam Shankman Written By: Sam Harper Based Upon the Novel by: Frank B. Gilbreth Jr. & Ernestine Gilbreth Carey Cast: Steve Martin Bonnie Hunt Alyson Stoner Forrest Landis Morgan York Liliana Mumy Jacob Smith Tom Welling Brent Kinsman Shane Kinsman Hilary Duff Blake Woodruff Kevin Schmidt Piper Perabo Jonathan Bennett Eugene Levy Carmen Electra Jaime King Alexander Conti Taylor Lautner Melanie Tonello Robbie Amell Courtney Fitzpatrick Madison Fitzpatrick Shawn Roberts

DVD Features: Audio: English Dolby 5.1, Spanish & French Dolby Surround English & Spanish Subtitles Commentary w/Adam Shankman Theatrical Trailers Casting Sessions