Customer Reviews

Cheaper by the Dozen

5 star:		(81)
4 star:		(51)
3 star:		(34)
2 star:		(21)
1 star:		(38)

 

 

Okay, so it's not as good as the book. And actually, other than the title and the fact that it involves a family with twelve kids, it bears no resemblance to the book at all. But "Cheaper by the Dozen", which stars Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt as the parents of a REALLY big family, is sweet and sorta funny and carries a nice message about spending time with your kids. And in the end that was good enough for me.

The Bakers never set out to have twelve children, it just sort of happened, and as the movie opens they are living in chaotic but harmonious discord in a rambling old house in the country. But then Dad gets the job of a lifetime, and the whole brood moves into the city/suburbs, where the kids don't fit in and are miserable and the parents begin to fight and everything starts to fall apart. And them Mom goes on a book tour. Craziness ensues.

If you are a pre-teen, teen, or, like me, twenty-three and sad, you will recognize almost every kid in this movie from Disney and WB shows. Tween fave Hilary Duff isn't given much to do and is wasted, but "Smallville"'s Tom Welling is affecting as the oldest son, even if his plot line is a little ridiculous. (I mean, there is no high school, anywhere in America, where a guy as impossibly gorgeous as Welling would be an outcast. We know a hottie when we see one.)

"Cheaper by the Dozen" doesn't have any really big laughs, but many small ones, and you may get teary-eyed at the end. A pretty good family flick and recommended for a Saturday matinee at the movies.<P(...)

This is a family movie, so you can buy (or rent it) without really flinching about dirty words or inappropriate behavior. Here are a dozen reasons why it's OK and not so OK.

1) (Good) Steve Martin is perfect for these kind of roles. He remains the personification of the unflappable leading man that he's portrayed in films like "Parenthood" and "Father Of The Bride."

2) (Bad) Bonnie Hunt is wasted. She comes off well, but ultimately the kids and Martin have to carry the film.

3) (Good) The kids are likable, and, at times, very touching (Especially Mark/Fed Ex). None of them utter curse words or make smutty jokes.

4) (Bad) That the kids frequently flagrantly disobey house rules without any kind of discipline. (Although the pants and meat gag is the film's best joke.) They plot and scheme sadistic traps ala "Home Alone" lite, and spend a fair amount of time saying how badly the parents' work is interfering with their lives, never minding the fact that Dad's new job is putting them into a higher standard of living then they've ever known before. (Tom Welling in particular.)

5) (Good) Nice to see parents who are willing to try to live their dreams, not shut everything else out of their lives and do so without resentment towards each other.

6) (Bad) Does anyone really believe you could practice a College football team in a back yard?

7) (Good) Despite having twelve kids on screen (OK, so Nora, the oldest, is living on her own), each kid gets some time to chew the scenery and does so without getting overtly cute or sugary.

8) (Bad) The DVD sports a serious lack of extras. Fox couldn't fit a trailer on the disc but found space to promote the upcoming "Garfield?" Boo and hiss.

9) (Good) Ashton Kutcher playing right into type as Nora's narcissistic boyfriend.

10) (Bad) I am getting really tired of all things Hillary Duff.

11) (Good) Any soundtrack that features 10,000 Maniacs and Fountains of Wayne is all right by me.

12) (Ultimate Good) The final messgae is that families can ultimately be happiest if they stay honest to themselves. Even in a movie as slight as "Cheaper By The Dozen," it is a message that is usally ignored or, even worse, mocked by most current Hollywood fare, here it is movie's strongest core statement. That alone makes "Cheaper By The Dozen" worth at least a viewing.

Steve Martin movies are usually very good. "Bringing Down the House," was great, as was "Novocaine," but now he is starting to go to family movies in "Cheaper by the Dozen." "Cheaper by the Dozen," is a remake of a much older movie that was based on a book. The reason I liked this movie was that it was funny, smart, and it was not just an hour and a half of children screaming. Steve Martin was funny in it, very much like he usually is, and I could see them making a sequal out of it, especially since it's already made over a hundred million dollars since Christmas Day.

The movie is about Tom and Kate Baker who live in the small town of Midland with their kids. They have twelve of them. Tom is a collage football couch, and his wife is writing a book on her family which is actually called Cheaper by the Dozen. Their oldest daughter Nora has moved out of the house and is living with her model/actor boyfriend Hank. When Tom gets a job offer to couch another football team they move to a new city, much to the dismay of their children, who find out wuickly that they do not fit in the new city. Their next oldest children next to Nora is Charlie, who has made it pretty clear that he does not really like his father, and Lorraine, who is always obsessing about what the family wears, how they look, etc etc. The rest of the children also always make fun of Mark, who is so unlike everybody else in the family, that the kids call him "Fedex," as if he was delivered to them.

They are just settling into their new home, and their new life, when Kate gets her book published and she has to go away for two weeks to promote it. Tom states that he could handle the kids for those two weeks, and be able to go to work, so Kate goes. Problems start right away when Nora and Hank come and the kids make it their personal mission to annoy Hank in any way that they can. Take this one scene where they soak his underwear in meat so that the dog would chase after him. It's clever, especially since it was thought up by ten year olds. More problems arise from Kate leaving, and that's pretty much the story to "Cheaper by the Dozen."

If Tom was played by anybody else then Steve Martin, the movie might not have complety worked. I also don't like the way people always state that they shouldn't make a remake of a classic. I don't compare remakes to the oringal. The remake is a new movie. It's a seprate movie and I think about it, as if the first movie was never made. The same with book adaptations. I see the movie as if the book was never made. That's what you have to do with "Cheaper by the Dozen." It's an hour and a half long, and it's funny, with some good acting, and some very funny moments and very funny scenes.

ENJOY!

Rated PG for language and some thematic elements.

I've been a fan of Steve Martin since the days when he used to do comedy with an arrow through his head. I've liked all of his movies until this one. This should have been good, light entertainment, but in reality it is a complete disappointment.

It is difficult to imagine that they could have put together a less appealling or more annoying set of children. Hilary Duff is the worst of the bunch. Even Smallville's hunky Tom Welling is wasted here.

If you think children throwing objects at their teacher, setting people on fire, and roller skating inside at the top of stairs is cute you'll love this. I find it appalling.

The idea that children should have a say in their parents career decisions and that they should sabotage the parent's careers if they don't like the parents choices is offensive.

And the idea that parents can simply walk away from their jobs and still live in a gigantic house is just plain bizarre.

In Hollywood films, kids are mean. They tell their siblings to drop-dead, roll their eyes at dumb-old-dad, barf all over the floor and run away, and always seem to have a snarky come-back for every situation. They are cynical, jaded, suspicious, and totally lacking in innocence; they represent the worst aspects of adulthood.

In my opinion, films like this are like extended sit-coms - although most sit-coms are better written. My family was quite stunned by how nasty everyone was; there wasn't a kind moment anywhere except in the last 5 minutes, when syrupy-violins prompt us to recall how much they really "love eachother".
If you want to see a film where kids act and talk like real kids, try to get your hands on a British film called "Melody", made in the early 1970's. It'll knock your socks off.

Cheaper by the dozen is a movie created by a formula where you throw in talented comedic actors like Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt and twelve cute kids and just let the hilarity ensue. Except it isn't really that easy.

Sure, there are funny moments when Martin tries to corral the 12 crazy kids (actually eleven because one (Piper Peraboo) had already moved out and only appears a few times. Her boyfriend is one of the highlights of the film). But creating a funny situation with comedic scenes doesn't make a movie if you don't care for the characters.

Characterization is where the movie falls short. Bonnie Hunt is called away on business after she sends her book to a publisher friend and has to go away on a book tour (I didn't know it only took a few weeks to publish a book). Then Martin gets his dream job as a coach of his alma matter football team. I think the movie expects us to take this part seriously because football coaching draws Martin away from his family, but the whole football thing is done so poorly, it is hard too. The football coaching gig loses credibility when Martin brings the team home to practice at his house and his tiny yard and there aren't even 20 players on the entire team.

The predictable plot has Martin starting to choose his career over family and in the end choosing family again. But none of the kids are really memorable. Hillary Duff and Tom Weilling are some of the bigger stars, but Duff really does nothing. The little kids each have a few moments of screen time, but with so many characters, there are none to care about and thus no reason to care what decision Martin makes.

This is a okay movie if you realize you will see nothing you haven't seen before. This movie is also great for families with no bad language or adult situations (other than the fact that the oldest daughter lives with her boyfriend).

Turn loose some gratingly, implausibly screaming 13-year olds and you've got 75% of your flick. Steve Martin seems oddly miscast - there's a few moments when he goes into his "schtick" that stand out like a sore thumb (like when Mom drives away to New York and he does "mad scientist Steve"). But basically this is a guy running his family into the ground because of putting his personal dreams before his kids.

Bonnie Hunt is likeable enough as always - Tom Welling seems pretty much wasted as a sulky teenager who gets picked on and goes through several changes of character for no reason. I'm heading home, Dad. I'm moving out. I'm going to stay. I hate you. You were right.

Welling doesn't have that much screen-time and it seems every time he appears on screen he's got a different personality. Hillary and Piper are tolerable. Ashton Kutcher is...well, Ashton Kutcher. He's annoying but since we're supposed to be rooting for the family against him, that's not too surprising. he's a bit too broad, though.

The movie probably pivots around the kiddies - Bill Mumy's kid is cute, as is the Landis boy, a newcomer. They're all annoyingly precocious but that's pretty much par for the course with such movies. The supporting cast of non-family members don't have much to do and truth be told, the film is busy enough with the family subplots as it is.

By the end the father's learned a valuable lesson (so presumably have we), but one suspects most of the kids would be traumatized for life with such ludicrous parenting antics. Overall, CBTD seems to go a bit too far into the third-act pit of depression and tragedy before pulling it together for an upbeat conclusion.

A worthy rental maybe if you have some early teens in the house to "enjoy" the doozy predicament with.

It appears the "Cheaply made to make one sick" reviewer is confusing this with another film. Cheaper is such a fine family film the Hollywood elite won't bother recognizing it as a movie worth lauding. It's refreshing to take children to such a picture. The standard obscenities and vulgarities were almost non-existent, which is encouraging in moviefare. I and my family thoroughly enjoyed this charming motion picture and encourage others to patronize such films in the interest of driving the money away from such wastes of celluloid as "Bad Santa"

Reading the previously written reviews for this movie makes me realize how many intelligent movie fans there are out there. I can not disagree with any observations that have already been made. After seeing this DVD and reading the reviews, one thing is clear to me: if you make a movie with flaws, people will notice it. Considering how many bad movies come out in theatres these days, this is definitely a revelation.

It is true, the movie is cliche and underuses the talents of Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt. It is also true that in today's modern world having 12 kids of your own without thinking of adoption is more than a bit selfish. But like it or not, there are people in this country who still believe in the virtues of having enough kids for their own football team. Should that have been made into a comedy for adults? No, certainly not.

But the thing that strikes me about this movie is that it was made for kids, not adults. Kids can relate to this family because with 12 of them every kid is bound to relate to one of them. The prissy teenage girl in Hillary Duff, the younger neglected child. Yes it's a bad movie. But don't be surprised if your kids ask you to put this torture in the DVD every weekend when their cousins come over.

The silly antics in this movie are a part of that too. The snake getting loose at the birthday party. Who didn't see that coming?

It's a shame that so many of us were roped into this one because Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt have their names on it. But that's how film-makers make money, by trying to appeal to both parents and children. For those who love these actors and want a great movie, this isn't it. But if you have a lot of kids to keep occupied, this movie's flaws seem to bother those under the age of 12 a lot less than the rest of us.

Waste of talent, insult to parents who can cope, and just plain bothersome. You might stay awake for the first hour, but then it gets embarassing. So give into your urges and take a nap. Remember Clifton Webb.