The movie farce revolves around elaborate comic set pieces in which a minor mishap like an escaped pet frog at the breakfast table sets off a dizzying chain reaction that leaves everything in a shambles. When the children disagree with family policy, they organize themselves into cute little protesting armies. The most distinctive of the younger children is Mark (Forrest Landis), a nerdy misfit called FedEx by his siblings to suggest he was sent to the family by accident. Not to worry, however: no one in this brood is capable of real cruelty. Two older children, football-playing Charlie (Tom Welling) and fashion-conscious Lorraine (Hilary Duff), are as bland and personality-deficient as Hunt's Kate. Neither role could be called career advancing.
If Cheaper by the Dozen, directed by Shawn Levy, has only the most tenuous hold on reality, its happy times carry a sting of regret. To surrender to a movie like this is to buy on some level its impossibly idealized portrait of family togetherness.
Once its cozy glow wears off, a tiny part of you is likely to feel a pang that your family isn't as happy and secure as the Bakers. No family could be.
RSS