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Cheaper by the Dozen | ||||
R E V I E W B Y R I C H C L I N E |
dir Shawn Levy scr Craig Titley, Joel Cohen, Sam Harper, Alec Sokolow with Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Tom Welling, Hilary Duff, Piper Perabo, Ashton Kutcher, Richard Jenkins, Alan Ruck, Vanessa Bell Calloway, Holmes Osborne, Paula Marshall, Alyson Stoner, Forrest Landis, Kevin G Schmidt, Jacob Smith, Liliana Mumy release US 25.Dec.03; UK 6.Feb.04 Fox 03/US 1h37 The gang's all here: The fabulous Baker family (above), Duff and Welling (below) | |||
The film does well to focus on the more grown-up conflicts, leaving the younger kids' plots and antics to explode from time to time in well-staged set pieces. Some of this is quite hilarious (mostly the scenes where Kutcher is the butt of the joke), and the film only strains when it tries too hard to be heartwarming or meaningful. Martin is wonderful when he plays it straight--bringing out the wry wit in the dialog--but he's terrible at the broad physical comedy. Hunt is excellent as usual, providing the film's sharper moments. And the older children get decent characters (Perabo's independent young woman, Welling's brooding jock, Duff's fashion-obsessed teen), while the younger ones blend into a gelatinous mass with a few standouts here and there. Really, the main problem is a script that exists in a fantasyland where the worst thing a child ever does is to let his frog loose at breakfast time. Reality would be a whole lot grittier than this soft, silly movie. And perhaps a nod in that direction--along with a slight avoidance of so much sloppy syrup--would have helped.
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L Taylor, Minneapolis: "A friend told me this was worth the money - and it looked so DARN cute. It is cute, predictable and well worth seeing. We laughed alot - then talked about what it would be like having 12 kids, went home to our 4 cats and were glad we had only 4. A good movie about family and kids, and definitely worth seeing." (12.Jan.04) | ||||
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