Once a rather funny man, Steve Martin seems content to spend the remainder of his acting day riffing off pedestrian sources and presumably pocketing large pay cheques. And so it is with his latest film, the ramshackle family comedy, 'Cheaper by the Dozen'. Although strictly speaking 'Cheaper by the Dozen' isn't a remake, it feels so familiar that it appears to be little more than an exercise in convention.
As the title suggest, Martin plays Tom Baker, the patriarch of the Baker family of 12 kids (Baker's dozen - geddit? Ho-hum.) The sort of family that make the Waltons like a bunch of pill popping manic depressives, the Bakers live in an idyllic rural retreat in Podunk, Illinois where all the kids get to run amok, while Tom and his missus, Kate make go-go noises at each other. All that changes when football coach Tom gets the offer of a lifetime - looking after his old university team in Chicago - and decides to relocate the family to a flashy, yuppie suburb. When Kate's writing career takes off, the nippers, especially Mark (Forrest Landis), start to think that their folks just don't care any more.
The high moral ground adopted by the filmmakers is that nothing - certainly not even a high flying career - should come before family. Honourable sentiments indeed, but when the kids are as bratty, self-obsessed and downright selfish as those in 'Cheaper by the Dozen', sympathy for their plight begins to waver. This moral quibble would be excusable if there were enough quality gags in the movie, but 'Cheaper by the Dozen' refuses to extend itself beyond the predictable and banal, with little invention or artistry. Oh, and for a woman who has supposedly had 12 kids, Bonnie Hunt has the kind of hourglass figure women half her age would kill for. But that's Hollywood for you. But at least the lovely Ashton Kutcher and Superman from Smallville are in it.
