YOURS, MINE AND OURS

Did I mention there is a pig? Pigs are funny.

Now, I don't have cable, so I've never actually watched Nickelodeon... but I am savvy enough in the ways of pop culture to know that there is apparently a game show on that channel that involves people falling in vats of goo, having goo poured over their heads, or getting in goo fights. So when I saw the Nickelodeon logo before this remake, I should have known what sort of level of entertainment Yours, Mine and Ours would be. This is a film simply held together by goo, and lots of it.

Dennis Quaid plays the Admiral, a widower with a whopping 8 kids. He re-meets-cute his drop-dead gorgeous high school sweetheart Helen (Rene Russo) at his high school reunion. It is love at second sight when he finds out that she is a widow with 10 kids (how charming!). Seconds later, they are married and the families are moving in together, so quickly that the 18 kids seem to not only have never met, but don't know about each other's existence. Well, this is the movies after all!

Have you ever noticed that in "family friendly" movies (i.e. approved by the most conservative of parental panels), that beautiful single moms and dads are only that way because their spouse DIED? No one ever had their partner run off with the gardener or neighborhood slut, or (get this) were never married in the first place despite their passel of children? Just a thought. But enough of a thought to make me feel pretty cross early on in the film.

Anyways, the farm-team of children all hate each other of course, with the Admiral's kids being cut-n-dried Von Trapp clones, and Helen's kids being a bunch of freaky, free-love, artist-types (and ethnically diverse, too!). The kids plot to break up the adults, and hilarity ensues! That is if you find (see first paragraph) the idea of Dennis Quaid falling in pools of goo, getting paint dumped over his head, and falling face first into vats of sticky liquid of questionable substance to be your kind of fun. Freakin' hilarious. Every. Single. Time.

Did I mention there is a pig? Pigs are funny. Especially when they run through every scene, so that the kids can chase it, or the adults can nod knowingly at its wacky animal antics.

Yours, Mind and Ours sucked. It sucked so much so that I didn't become even a tiny bit curious about the original 1968 movie starring the most-likely fabulous Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda. I didn't laugh once, or even smirk during this film. But, surprisingly, there were several people (adults even!) that pointed and howled with laughter every time that Dennis Quaid was humiliated by sticky liquid byproducts. So this film must have a target audience that will appreciate it. Who these people are, I don't have the foggiest idea.