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Cheaper By The Dozen 2

2005, Movie, PG, 94 mins

Cheaper By The Dozen 2: Review

CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN 2
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Screenwriter Sam Harper and director Adam Shankman appear to have taken the notion of "the more the merrier" seriously. But unfortunately in this instance, more doesn't make merry, only mayhem: Adding a second family of eight youngsters to the 12 Baker children introduced in CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN (2003) adds up to a mind-boggling mob of little faces, all mugging wildly. Chicago-based Tom and Kate Baker (Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt) are lamenting the fact that their children are starting to grow up and leave the nest. Eldest Nora (Piper Perabo) is married to Bud (Jonathan Bennett) and is moving to Houston and expecting a child; fashion-obsessed Lorraine (Hilary Duff) has finished high school and is headed to New York for an internship at Allure magazine; and the rest are growing up fast. So Kate and Tom decide to take the entire brood on one last vacation at Lake Winnetka. But as soon as they run into suddenly wealthy neighbor Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy), who's on his third wife (Carmen Electra) and has eight perfectly behaved and overachieving children of his own, Tom's competitive nature kicks in — he can't help but compare the model Murtaughs with his own wild bunch. A series of silly games and gags ensues, even as some kids opt to ignore the silly family feud in favor of fun, flirting and first crushes. The war culminates in the competition for the Labor Day Cup, with both families training intensely for three-legged races, egg tosses and other old-timey events. If nothing else, Shankman deserves credit for wrangling his herd of child actors, but trying to squeeze 21 kids and four adult stars into one 90-minute movie inevitably means that many of the younger characters are indistinguishable from one another and have little to do beyond contributing to the general insanity. With the exception of Martin and Levy, the adults are underutilized, and the bumbling-dads shtick becomes more than a little grating as the film progresses. Ironically, one of the film's best-developed characters is a mouse: The four-legged "Chizzler" actually has a legitimate story arc with a genuine payoff. leave a comment --Angel Cohn
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