DVD Monthly

Cheaper By The Dozen 2

Reviewer: Chris Hallam
Issue 77 May 2006
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Families at war.

The Lowdown: Having simultaneously juggled coaching a football team with bringing up his huge family in the first film, now Tom Baker and his wife Kate find themselves engaged in a bitter rivalry with Tom’s childhood nemesis, super rich Jimmy and his family of eight, during a holiday to Lake Winnetka.

Review: Whatever happened to Steve Martin? During the 80s, in films like Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid and The Man With Two Brains he was among the funniest men in Hollywood. Then in 90s dramas Grand Canyon and The Spanish Prisoner he proved equally successful as a straight actor. While it’s probably too soon to write his obituary (Shopgirl, based on his own novella, is worth a look) in the last decade his career has been blighted by a slew of unnecessary remakes and sequels.

You may not have thought 2003’s Cheaper By The Dozen (itself a remake of a 1950 film) was great, but trust us – this pointless sequel from Adam Shankman is infinitely worse. While the first film at least worked as a fairly uninspired family comedy, the sequel’s lazy in the extreme and is as crammed with pointless slapstick, mawkish sentimentality and clichéd jokes as Shankman’s previous child orientated outing, the dismal Vin Diesel vehicle The Pacifier. Eugene Levy (another talented comedy actor in danger of squandering the public’s goodwill towards him) is given little funny to do, and with an average bunch of extras this is for masochists and Hilary Duff obsessives only.

FILM: 3
EXTRAS: 5

Disc Info:
Certificate: PG
Starring: Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, Hilary Duff, Tom Welling, Piper Perabo, Eugene Levy, Carmen Elektra
Director: Adam Shankman
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Original Release: 2005
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Visuals: 16:9 Anamorphic Widescreen
Running Time: 94 mins
Price: £15.99

Special Features:
Scene Selection
Audio Commentary With Director Adam Shankman
‘Camp Chaos’ Featurette
‘A Comedic Trio’ Featurette
Fox Movie Channel Special Casting