| CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2 |
 2005 - USADirector: Adam Shankman
- Reviewed by Vickie
This time around, the Tom and Kate Baker (Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt) are coping with a bit of empty-nest syndrome when daughter Lorraine (Hilary Duff in a glorified cameo) graduates from college. Or high school. It’s never really clear, but I’m leaning towards the former… only because everyone starts making a big to-do about how she’s moving to New York City to intern at Allure. With her preparing to depart, oldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) pregnant and oldest son Charlie (Tom Welling) living downtown, Tom and Kate find themselves yearning for better times… despite the fact that they seem to have forgotten that they still have NINE OTHER CHILDREN at home. So, Tom decides to try to recapture the past by organizing a big family vacation up at the lake, where summers-gone-by were spent laughing and playing and going toe-to-toe with rival family man Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy) at the lake’s annual Labor Day tournament. But when the Bakers arrive at the cottage they haven’t seen in several years, they’re surprised to learn that Jimmy’s become a real-estate magnate who’s bought up almost all of the vacation properties and scored himself a much-younger trophy wife named Sarina (Carmen Electra). Old rivalries immediately surface and it’s soon family against family for lakeside supremacy. What follows is plenty of pratfall humor and gags that made me recall Linda’s review of Yours, Mine & Ours While this film is devoid of goo and I don’t recall any pigs, there are more than enough instances of things breaking, falling or exploding; assorted characters being thrown, tripped or embarrassed somehow; a rampaging dog that gets into no end of trouble; and, of course, the requisite number of groin-injury shots. But the movie did have a few things going for it. Bonnie Hunt’s dry humor and sly asides made me laugh out loud, and Carmen Electra gave what could have been a one-note character a little extra depth. (I know, I know, but I swear it’s true.) I liked the brief moments of heart sprinkled here and there, even if they did seem wildly out of place, and I *loved* “The Chisler”—a resident rat at the Bakers’ cottage, who’s been stealing their stuff and hoarding it away in the walls for years. Lastly, here’s the thing about Cheaper By the Dozen 2 that landed it four slices when, really, it should probably top out at three, max: despite its manufactured feel and uninspired humor, damn if it didn’t still make me cry. I was so angry at myself for letting the movie get to me, but it did. So here’s your other slice. Dammit! |
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I think there are about nine thousand kids running around this
cookie-cutter sequel to the 2003 comedy about a larger-than-life brood.
Okay, maybe not really nine thousand, but it sure felt like there were
way more of them than there were the first time we encountered the
Baker clan. Sadly, revisiting them for their latest misadventure not
only feels like we’re watching them in inferior versions of other
movies (The Great Outdoors, Indian Summer and, most
recently, the abysmal Yours, Mine & Ours), but trying to keep
track of all the children makes one want to carry a cast roster to
determine just who’s who and belongs to whom.
