Title: Cheaper by the Dozen
Release Date: 2003-12-25
Genres: Comedy, Kids & Family
High essence:
"CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN Directed by Shawn Levy; written by Sam Harper, Joel Cohen and Alec Craig Titley based on the memoir by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr.""Directed by Shawn Levy ( Just Married, Big Fat Liar ) and aimed more at little kids than whole families (as evidenced by the gratingly twinkly score), the picture has scattered moments of mirth, many coming at the hands of Ashton Kutcher (That '70s Show), who plays the universally disliked, dimwitted live-in boyfriend of the eldest daughter (Piper Perabo) who has already left the nest."
"The story has the family moving from their small, overcrowded house to aspacious mansion after dad gets a college coaching job and mom lands a bookdeal."
"Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen have Toy Story (1995) to their credit, as well as next year's sure-to-suck Garfield film."
"Dad gives up dream for bratty kids."
"Baker is hardly more adept at running a big-time football program at a major university."
"Even the Bakers' one grown child, Nora (Piper Perabo), can't help, especially with her current beau,self-admiring thesp Hank (Ashton Kutcher, in what's likely the year's biggest uncredited role), as a constant target of the tykes' pranks."
Medium essence:
Stephen Holden:- CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN Directed by Shawn Levy; written by Sam Harper, Joel Cohen and Alec Craig Titley based on the memoir by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr.
- The movie, which opens nationally today, is nominally a remake of the 1950 family comedy starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy.
- Tom Baker (Steve Martin), the genial ruler of the roost, is a college football coach who sacrificed his dreams of working with a first-division team to settle for a third-division outfit in cozy, sleepy Midland, Ill.
Rob Blackwelder:
- Directed by Shawn Levy ( Just Married, Big Fat Liar ) and aimed more at little kids than whole families (as evidenced by the gratingly twinkly score), the picture has scattered moments of mirth, many coming at the hands of Ashton Kutcher (That '70s Show), who plays the universally disliked, dimwitted live-in boyfriend of the eldest daughter (Piper Perabo) who has already left the nest.
- Escaped pet frogs and butt-biting dogs abound even before the plot kicks in, seeing the family move from their rural Illinois homestead to the hustle and bustle of Chicago when Dad, now a college football coach (in an abandonment of the original's most essential ingredient), is offered his dream job heading the team at his Division One alma mater.
- This doesn't sit well with any of the Baker offspring -- among them a ditzy fashionista played by Hilary Duff ( Lizzie Maguire ), a mopey high school senior played by the way-too-old Tom Welling (Smallville) and anwk red-heded, bespectacled outcast (newcomer Forest Landis) -- most of whom feel like hicks among hipsters in their big city schools.
Steve Rhodes:
- Perabo's lame acting reminds us of why, even withseveral juicy roles, she has never been able to break through to anything evenremotely approachin star.
- The story has the family moving from their small, overcrowded house to aspacious mansion after dad gets a college coaching job and mom lands a bookdeal.
- When wemeet them, Kate is slinging toast like Frisbees to her small army of munchkins,while overhead the family frog is about to take a flying leap into a big bowlof scrambled eggs, turning their breakfast into their usual family disaster.
Eric D. Snider:
- Their oldest, Nora (Piper Perabo), is 22 and out of the house; their youngest are twin boys, Nigel and Kyle (Brent and Shane Kinsman), age 4.
- In a similar vein, though Mrs Shenk (Paula Marshall) and Tom's old friend Shake (Richard Jenkins) clearly have a disdain for children, there is no scene where they get their hilarious comeuppance via having goop dumped on their heads or by falling into a mud puddle.
- Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen have Toy Story (1995) to their credit, as well as next year's sure-to-suck Garfield film.
Erik Childress:
- Dad gives up dream for bratty kids.
- I love the little twins, they're SO cute!
- 4/25/04 Carla hilarious, few round characters, but how could you manage that with 12 main characters?
Ruthe Stein:
- Baker is hardly more adept at running a big-time football program at a major university.
- Al Pacino you could buy screaming on the sidelines, but Martin doesn't project the authority required of coaching at this level.
- REUTERS/Mark Fellman / 20th Century Fox/Handout REUTERS Photo: HO Actress Bonnie Hunt and actor Steve Martin (C) are surrounded by...
Robert Koehler:
- There's an early glimpse of the mass chaos to come when, after a pleasantly messy but warm group project making breakfast, young pet-obsessed Mark (Forrest Landis) tries to snag his escaping frog and turns the breakfast table and kitchen into a disaster area.
- Even the Bakers' one grown child, Nora (Piper Perabo), can't help, especially with her current beau,self-admiring thesp Hank (Ashton Kutcher, in what's likely the year's biggest uncredited role), as a constant target of the tykes' pranks.
- Mediocre production look, as well as the nervous need to push human comedy into zoo-like antics, matches the dreadful Just Married, also made by the filmmaking squad of helmer Shawn Levy, producer Robert Simonds, writer Sam Harper, lenser Jonathan Brown, designer Nina Ruscio Digital/DTS), Obermeyer; supreCrro; val effects supe, Cmas P Bolger; special effects coordinator, Dave Kelsey;cialsual cts,igital Filmworks; additional visual effects, 11:11 Mediaorks ; stunt coordinator, Reply No Comments Cancel reply Comments are moderated.
Low essence:
Stephen Holden:- His wife, Kate (Bonnie Hunt), gave up a career as a newspaper journalist to play supermom.
- Just when Mom's memoir is accepted by a New York publisher who insists that she go on a book tour, Dad's deferred football dreams are reignited with an invitation to coach a first-division team in another town.
- The oldest daughter, Nora, who has moved out of the house to be with her vain boyfriend (an uncredited Ashton Kutcher) sporadically pitches in.
- Two older children, football-playinaom d fashion-conscious Lorraine (Hilary Duff), are as bland and personality-deficient as Ms Hunt's Kate.
- CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN Directed by Shawn Levy; written by Sam Harper, Joel Cohen and Alec Craig Titley based on the memoir by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr.
- The movie, which opens nationally today, is nominally a remake of the 1950 family comedy starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy.
- Tom Baker (Steve Martin), the genial ruler of the roost, is a college football coach who sacrificed his dreams of working with a first-division team to settle for a third-division outfit in cozy, sleepy Midland, Ill.
Rob Blackwelder:
- From this point on, Cheaper by the Dozen goes everywhere you'd expect, from chandelier-swinging to cooking disasters to barf gags to run-ins with uptight preppie neighbors to trite life lessons, all of which gets wrapped up in an impossibly neat little bundle of family warmth and harmony just before the credits roll -- but, of course, after the grown-ups get back in touch with their priorities.
- Directed by Shawn Levy ( Just Married, Big Fat Liar ) and aimed more at little kids than whole families (as evidenced by the gratingly twinkly score), the picture has scattered moments of mirth, many coming at the hands of Ashton Kutcher (That '70s Show), who plays the universally disliked, dimwitted live-in boyfriend of the eldest daughter (Piper Perabo) who has already left the nest.
- I grant the premise that many dads probably are just as oblivious as Martin's caring but largely useless character.
- com) Remake of 'Cheaper by the Dozen' cut from the same lame cloth as patronizing patriarch sitcoms on TV SPLICEDwire --> Is anybody else getting tired of doofus dad comedies?
- A loose remake of a 1950 laffer about a huge turn-of-the-century family headed by a stern efficiency expert, this version spends its opening voice-over explaining how Tom and Kate Baker (Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt) ended up with 12 kids in this age of easy contraception before it launches into a multiple helping of the same old themes of clueless parents and kiddie chaos.
- Escaped pet frogs and butt-biting dogs abound even before the plot kicks in, seeing the family move from their rural Illinois homestead to the hustle and bustle of Chicago when Dad, now a college football coach (in an abandonment of the original's most essential ingredient), is offered his dream job heading the team at his Division One alma mater.
- This doesn't sit well with any of the Baker offspring -- among them a ditzy fashionista played by Hilary Duff ( Lizzie Maguire ), a mopey high school senior played by the way-too-old Tom Welling (Smallville) and anwk red-heded, bespectacled outcast (newcomer Forest Landis) -- most of whom feel like hicks among hipsters in their big city schools.
Steve Rhodes:
- Perabo's lame acting reminds us of why, even withseveral juicy roles, she has never been able to break through to anything evenremotely approachin star.
- Ashcher, playing Nora's boyfriend Hank,is terrific in a self-mocking part as a would-be actor who is thoroughly inlove with his own image.
- The story has the family moving from their small, overcrowded house to aspacious mansion after dad gets a college coaching job and mom lands a bookdeal.
- Living in a family eleven kids shy of the Baker's dozen, we laughed most at anonly-child joke.
- Not taking itself seriously until its predictablymessage-laden last act, the movie is unabashedly slapstick.
- Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt play Tom and Kate Baker, a pair of patient parentswho set out to have eight kids but overachieve, ending up with twelve.
- When wemeet them, Kate is slinging toast like Frisbees to her small army of munchkins,while overhead the family frog is about to take a flying leap into a big bowlof scrambled eggs, turning their breakfast into their usual family disaster.
Eric D. Snider:
- Their oldest, Nora (Piper Perabo), is 22 and out of the house; their youngest are twin boys, Nigel and Kyle (Brent and Shane Kinsman), age 4.
- The gang in between runs the gamut: rebellious teen Charlie (Tom Welling), een Lhockey player Jake (Jacob Smith), and a bunch of others with enough personality quirks to differentiate them from their siblings.
- Almost simultaneously, Kate is given a shot at her dream, too: The book she wrote about raising 12 kids is being published, and she's being sent on a publicity tour.
- Can Tom, who is already becoming an absentee father, handle a football team AND the kids while she's gone?
- In a similar vein, though Mrs Shenk (Paula Marshall) and Tom's old friend Shake (Richard Jenkins) clearly have a disdain for children, there is no scene where they get their hilarious comeuppance via having goop dumped on their heads or by falling into a mud puddle.
- Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen have Toy Story (1995) to their credit, as well as next year's sure-to-suck Garfield film.
- I doubt the screenwriters cribbed from Pres.
Erik Childress:
- Dad gives up dream for bratty kids.
- I love the little twins, they're SO cute!
- 5/15/04 Jenny Tullwartz C'mon, EricDSnider, gimme fart humor over dog-almost-bites-off-genitalia humor any day!
- 4/25/04 Carla hilarious, few round characters, but how could you manage that with 12 main characters?
- 1/20/04 Jordan Booth and kate Fox We think that the movie is really great!
Ruthe Stein:
- Baker is hardly more adept at running a big-time football program at a major university.
- Al Pacino you could buy screaming on the sidelines, but Martin doesn't project the authority required of coaching at this level.
- Duff, amusing as the family's fashionista, advises Mom to leave the pastel ensembles at home and pack only navy and gray.
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- REUTERS/Mark Fellman / 20th Century Fox/Handout REUTERS Photo: HO Actress Bonnie Hunt and actor Steve Martin (C) are surrounded by...
Robert Koehler:
- There's an early glimpse of the mass chaos to come when, after a pleasantly messy but warm group project making breakfast, young pet-obsessed Mark (Forrest Landis) tries to snag his escaping frog and turns the breakfast table and kitchen into a disaster area.
- Even the Bakers' one grown child, Nora (Piper Perabo), can't help, especially with her current beau,self-admiring thesp Hank (Ashton Kutcher, in what's likely the year's biggest uncredited role), as a constant target of the tykes' pranks.
- Mediocre production look, as well as the nervous need to push human comedy into zoo-like antics, matches the dreadful Just Married, also made by the filmmaking squad of helmer Shawn Levy, producer Robert Simonds, writer Sam Harper, lenser Jonathan Brown, designer Nina Ruscio Digital/DTS), Obermeyer; supreCrro; val effects supe, Cmas P Bolger; special effects coordinator, Dave Kelsey;cialsual cts,igital Filmworks; additional visual effects, 11:11 Mediaorks ; stunt coordinator, Reply No Comments Cancel reply Comments are moderated.
Source:
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117922541.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
http://reviews.imdb.com/Reviews/366/36617
http://www.ericdsnider.com/movies/cheaper-by-the-dozen/
http://splicedwire.com/03reviews/cheaperdozen.html
http://efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=8419&reviewer=198
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/25/movies/25CHEA.html?ex=1103950800&en=2c49bbd04e001d0c&ei=5083&partner=Rotten Tomatoes
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/25/DDG5Q3TFQM1.DTL