Susan Granger’s review of “Cheaper By the Dozen 2” (20th Century-Fox)
Films don’t get more forgettable than this cheerless, tiresome sequel!
With his eldest daughter (Piper Perabo) married, pregnant and moving away and another daughter (Hilary Duff) headed for an internship at Allure magazine in Manhattan, about-to-be-almost-empty-nester Tom Baker (Steve Martin) decides to take his wife (Bonnie Hunt) and entire Chicago-based clan, including the dog, for one last, old-fashioned summer vacation on Lake Winnetka in Wisconsin, having come to the realization that “Life is blazing by.”
Once there, he’s faced with his longtime nemesis, Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy), a wealthy real estate developer who has taken over the resort area. Over the years, a family rivalry has developed which their offspring, now grown to adolescence, see little reason to continue, particularly since the eldest Baker son (TV “Superman” Tom Welling) is attracted to the eldest Murtaugh daughter (Jaime King) while another Baker daughter (Alyson Stoner) flirts with a Murtaugh boy (“Sharkboy” Taylor Lautner). Predictable confrontations lead to a formulaic Labor Day competition which appalls even Jimmy Murtaugh’s current trophy wife (Carmen Electra).
Once again written by Sam Harper and directed, this time, by Adam Shankman (“The Pacifier,” “Bringing Down the House”), it features lots of churlish children, memorably Shane and Brent Kinsman, who play the Scavo twins on TV’s “Desperate Housewives,” and inane dialogue. But the most objectionable offense is that the annoying, inane father-feud takes up far too much time and offers little psychological insight. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “Cheaper By the Dozen 2” is a tasteless, flimsy 4, proving big families aren’t much fun after all.
