I know I've seen the 1950 original filmed version of the legendary book by and about the family of Frank B. Gilbreth Jr., a leading efficiency expert who essentially used his family as guinea pigs for his theories on field of motion (in real life, the Gilbreth family had only 11 children). Clifton Webb played Mr. Gilbreth in the original, and in the 2003 remake, the always reliable Steve Martin fills in as Thomas Baker (get it, Baker's dozen? Ha!), a high school football coach married to Kate, a former Chicago Tribune journalist (Bonnie Hunt) who is writing a humorous book about their super-sized family situation. To save money on housing costs, the family moved into a home in the sticks of downstate Illinois many years ago. But when Mr. Baker gets the chance to coach the football team at his alma mater college, he uproots the family and moves to Chicago (Evanston, IL actually). The kids miss their simpler life in the country and basically they all start to make trouble for their parents right as both their careers start to take off. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN has lots of laughs but it also has a lot of dead space and a few too many HOME ALONE moments. The entire time I was watching this film, I couldn't help thinking, "Wow, SCHOOL OF ROCK handled its child actors so much more intelligently and believably."
Surprisingly in a film filled with so many cut kids, most of the interesting sections of CHEAPER come from its more grown actors. In addition to the very funny riffs by Martin and Hunt, an uncredited performance by Ashton Kutcher as the live-in self-obsessed actor boyfriend of the Baker's oldest daughter (Piper Perabo). I want to find reasons to hate this guy, I really do, but the guy makes me laugh almost every time I've seen him on film. His monologue about why he hates the Baker children (because one of them might damage his oh-so valuable beautiful face) is a riot. And the scene where the kids soak his underwear in meat to get the family dog to munch on his crotch should not have made me laugh as much as it did, but I won't apologize. Also on hand are "Smallville's" Tom Welling as the oldest son, Charlie, who is the closest to genuinely despising his parents, and Hilary Duff, who still thinks she needs to overact and over-enunciate in order to reach her key Disney Channel fan base. Maybe the film's most disturbing aspect is its ultimate message, which appears to be: you can't have a big family and a two-career household without your kids hating you. As if parents running large families don't have enough to worry about.
Still, CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN made me laugh more often than not; Martin and Hunt are a great couple; the nerdiest, outcast sibling is one of the heroes of the film; and the film's outtakes during the end credits are actually some of the funniest stuff in the movie. CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN could have been a lot worse (quote that in your print ads, Fox!), and is, in fact, highly watchable. The movie opens December 25.