Rating summary

Movie		2.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		2.0

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Blu-ray Movie Review

Cheaper by the sequel.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater January 8, 2010

There’s a scene in Cheaper by the Dozen 2 where Steve Martin is wearing a ridiculous shirt, a gaudy button-up adorned with a maritime-themed print. His wife, played by Bonnie Hunt, shoots him a look. “You actually bought that?” she says. “Come on,” says Steve, “every dad is entitled to one hideous shirt and one horrible sweater. It’s part of the dad code.” I wonder, then, if there’s also a comedian code, an unwritten rulebook that states that every comedian is allowed one sell-out “paycheck” franchise and one career sullying critical flop. If so, Steve Martin—the genius who gave us The Jerk, Roxanne, and Bowfinger, among many others—has broken it. Not only has he tried to fill Peter Sellers’ impossibly large shoes as Inspector Clouseau in two ill- advised Pink Panther remakes, but he’s also wasted his immeasurable talents in the dippy, Cheaper by the Dozen family comedy franchise. Did he owe someone a favor? Does he enjoy acting in these films, where could easily be replaced with a lesser talent like, I dunno, say, Tim Allen? The world may never know. I love the guy—and I suppose once you get into your sixties you’re allowed to do whatever you please—but I just don’t see the appeal of cranking out another Cheaper by the Dozen, besides a percentage of the box-office intake.

Tom and Kate Plus Twelve

With twelve kids, the Baker family puts Octo-mom to shame, and the older fledglings have begun to leave the nest. Seriously preggers eldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) is now married to Bud McNulty (Jonathan Bennett, stepping in for Ashton Kucher) and about to move to Houston in the fall. Recent high school graduate Lorraine (Hilary Duff) is also ready to fly the coop, having landed an internship with Allure Magazine in NYC. (How a mid-western teen lands such an internship, not to mention how she pays for an apartment in New York, is never addressed.) Meddlesome but well-meaning dad Tom (Martin) wants to get the whole gang together for one last family vacation at a cabin on Lake Winnetka. It’ll be just like old times! Across the lake, Tom’s former high school rival Jimmy Murtaugh (the impressively eyebrowed Eugene Levy) is spending the summer with his trophy wife (a surprisingly sweet Carmen Electra) and brood of eight at The Boulders, his waterfront mansion. The Murtaughs are filthy rich, and their perfectly coifed and accomplished kids seem to best the Baker bunch in every category. But the children from both clans get along just fine. In fact, there’s a little bit of Romeo and Juliet-ism going on, much to Tom and Jimmy’s chagrin, as tweener Sarah Baker (Alyson Stoner) falls hard for Elliot Murtaugh, played by future werewolf and teen heartthrob Taylor Lautner, pre-pubescent and squeaky voiced here.

Tom’s overbearing attempts to stymie the tween romance leads Bonnie Hunt’s Kate to sum up the film’s message with the old “the tighter you hang on, the more they’re going to pull away” adage. Kate also tells tomboy Sarah, “When you like a boy, never be anyone but yourself.” The thing is, the film straight up negates this when older sis Lorraine gives Sarah a pre-date makeover, transforming her from a baggy shorts and baseball cap-wearing athlete to a frilly and feminine little flower petal. Obviously, young girls can only stay tomboys until their first date, when they have to turn into leg-waxing, eyebrow-plucking princesses.

Anyway, the kids all get along, but the dads—as dads are wont to do—get fiercely competitive, trying to out-man, out-family, and out-accomplish one another at every turn of the “man, I’m sure I’ve seen this before” plot. When Tom’s brood eats s’mores around a campfire on one side of the river, Jimmy’s clan is having a fondue party on the other. When Tom suggests they sing a camp song, his family launches into a chaotic version of “There Was An Old Man Named Michael Finnegan.” Meanwhile, across the river, Jimmy’s J. Crew catalog kids are wailing an old Negro spiritual with perfect five-part harmony. So it goes. Eugene Levy is tasked solely with being smug and backhanded, and through Steve Martin hams it up admirably with some physical comedy that seems a bit dangerous for a man his age, the laughs are few and far between. The one- upmanship culminates in the lake’s annual Labor Day family field day, where the Bakers and the Murtaughs go head to head for the coveted silver cup. When Nora’s water breaks during a tie- breaking canoe race—I know, a literal labor day—both families have to join forces to trek through the woods and get her to the hospital.

Lessons are dutifully learned, conflicts are tidily resolved, and everyone lives happily ever after, at least until the inevitable third installment, which is slated to appear in 2011. It seems almost fruitless to be too harsh on Cheaper by the Dozen 2, though, as it seems content to be a safe, soulless, inoffensive and predictable family comedy, the kind which is universally dumped on by critics but makes a boatload of cash at the box office and on home video anyway. Kids might be temporarily amused by the lakeside shenanigans, but this is one family vacation that most parents will want to skip.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 comes packaged in a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's perfectly acceptable but—like the film itself—not very interesting, featuring the overly bright and somewhat sterile cinematography that's characteristic of these kinds of family comedies. For what it is, though, Cheaper looks fine and I'm a little disappointed I'm not able to use any cut-rate puns about how cheap the film looks. As expected, the color palette is light and summery, with lots of vivid, eye-popping hues like the primary red of the Murtaugh's family uniforms and the Kermit the Frog green of Tom's polo shirt. While color depth is generally strong, sometimes highlights during the daytime scenes outdoors can look a little overblown. Otherwise, contrast is decent, black levels are suitably dark, and shadow delineation is never a concern. Still, the image doesn't have much in the way of dimensionality or presence, and softness creeps into the picture on occasion, particularly in longer shots. The film doesn't quite look as sharp as it could, but there's still a fair amount of detail, especially in close-ups. The film's grain structure is minimal and hasn't been scrubbed clean, edge enhancement is not an issue, and although the film is on a single layer 25GB platter, I didn't spot any untoward compression related problems.

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Likewise, Cheaper by the Dozen 2 features a capable DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track that meets the film's demands with little fanfare. There's not much here to tax your home theater set-up, but this is a well-balanced mix that appropriately emphasizes dialogue, making sure we catch every flat joke and syrupy sentiment. I don't think I touched my remote once during the film, so everything is pretty much on an even keel. There are some modest audio highlights, I suppose. The scene with the satchel of fireworks includes a few nice sonic touches, like bottle rockets whistling through the rears and an explosion with surprisingly potent LFE, and the sound effects are adept at reproducing zippy jet-skis, cracking planks of wood, and a golf cart tearing through a chain link fence and crashing on a tennis court. The surround channels are used frequently for quiet ambience—woodsy sounds like chirping birds and buzzing insects mostly—and the film is laced with pop songs that sound just fine but are perhaps too on-the-nose lyrically, like "We Are Family" and "Why Can't We Be Friends."

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Commentary by Director Adam Shankman
Shankman, who you might know as one of the judges on Dancing With the Stars, says "you could see our base camp from Mars," referring to the film's cast of 25 principal actors. A lot of the talk, then, is about the various cast members, but Shankman also drums up a bunch of anecdotes and production details. Let's be honest though—are you really going to sit through a commentary for Cheaper by the Dozen 2?

Fox Movie Channel Presents Casting Session (SD, 8:03)
Director Adam Shankman and the film's casting director take us through the process of casting the Murtaugh family and detail some of the challenges of working with 20 kids—and their parents and stunt doubles—on set.

Camp Chaos (SD, 10:17)
"What's funny is chaos," says Adam Shankman, and this behind-the-scenes featurette focuses on the on-set fun and insanity.

A Comedic Trio (SD, 5:27)
Here, everyone gets to say a few nice things about working with Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, and Eugene Levy.

Theatrical Trailer #1 (SD, 2:10) and Theatrical Trailer #2 (SD, 2:26)

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

While marginally more fun than a Jon and Kate Plus Eight re-run, Cheaper by the Dozen 2—which should've been called Even Cheaper by the Dozen, or perhaps Cheaper by the Dozen 2: Baker's Dozen—is a tame and largely laugh-less fam-com that will likely please only those in the 4-10 age bracket. Parents, stay away if you can help it.