The Bakers and the Murtaughs Square Off in Cheaper By the Dozen 2

I recently watched the Steve Martin remake of Cheaper By the Dozen, and while I found it predictably corny and slapstick-heavy, I also thought it was a fun and occasionally touching movie. When I realized that there was a sequel, I quickly stuck that in the queue, and it, too, is a silly but rather heartwarming family comedy that made for enjoyable viewing.

Tom Baker (Martin) and his wife Kate (Bonnie Hunt) have an expansive family that includes a dozen children. This movie takes place a couple years after the first, so the kids look pretty much the same, and I found it pretty easy to keep them straight this time around. I’m sure that was partly because I had another movie in which to get used to them, but even if you haven’t seen the first movie, I think this one introduces everyone fairly well, and it works as a stand-alone. In fact, considering that one of the main gags – my least favorite part of both movies – is recycled from the first, you might almost enjoy it more without having seen the original.

In this sequel, directed by Adam Shankman, Tom is feeling a bit weepy because his daughter Lorraine (Hilary Duff) has just graduated from high school and is moving to New York, and his oldest daughter, a now married and very pregnant Nora (Piper Perabo), is moving to Texas in the fall. One advantage of having seen the first movie here is that we can see how much better her husband Bud (Jonathan Bennett) is for her than her dopey boyfriend in that movie. Bud is both kind and accomplished, and he understands Nora’s need to feel connected to her family. It doesn’t take much to get him to agree to join in the family vacation Tom proposes.

In years past, the Bakers made a habit of visiting Lake Winnetka, Wisconsin, and for nostalgia’s sake, this is where they return. Unfortunately, their cabin has fallen into a state of disrepair and is still occupied by a kleptomaniac rat. Meanwhile, Tom’s lifelong nemesis Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy) has an expansive, state-of-the-art summer home nearby, and it isn’t long before their old rivalry heats up and the rest of the two families get dragged down with them. The Murtaugh clan includes Jimmy’s much younger and more easy-going fourth wife Sarina (Carmen Electra) and eight children, all of whom seem to be extremely accomplished and disciplined.

Jimmy runs a tight ship and rubs it in that Tom’s crew is so chaotic, and before long, the Murtaughs and Bakers are locked into competition for a trophy that only the dads care about. The kids and wives get along fine, but the antagonism of the fathers toward each other puts a damper on everyone else’s fun. I’ve seen Martin and Levy together before in Bringing Down the House, and they have great comic chemistry whether they’re playing best buddies or squabbling neighbors. Tom swings between goofy and sentimental and militant and over-involved; some of the time I sympathized with him, and other times I wanted to throttle him. Even at his most irritating, though, I can’t help finding Martin pretty lovable. Levy’s Jimmy is dull and haughty, and it’s easy to see why he annoys Tom so much. I always enjoy Levy’s bland, deadpan comedic style, and it works well here. Meanwhile, Hunt and Electra work well together in less exaggerated roles.

We don’t really get to know the individual Murtaughs too well, with two exceptions, and both are because of how they relate to the Bakers. Anne (Jaime King), the oldest of the Murtaughs and the apple of her father’s eye, is struggling to summon the courage to tell him she doesn’t want to go into the family business. Meanwhile, she’s caught the attention of Tom Welling’s Charlie, who is off on his own now but working in the city to stay close to his family despite being a country boy at heart. Charlie is a lot less angsty this time around, and I liked his storyline. The male standout among the Murtaugh kids is a young Taylor Lautner as Eliot, a sunny lad who steals the heart of tomboy Sarah (Alyson Stoner) in a sweet puppy love storyline that prompts some pretty abhorrent behavior from both dads, especially Tom. While I still love Mark (Forrest Landis), the four-eyed frog lover with my favorite storyline in the first movie, he takes a major backseat here, and Sarah becomes the most interesting of the Bakers to me this time around as she navigates the joys and humiliations of first love.

As before, slapstick abounds, and sometimes that means massive disaster. The Bakers are responsible for two incidents that cause thousands of dollars in damage, and I couldn’t bring myself to find either of those scenes nearly as funny as they were intended to be, though I did wonder whether an incident involving fireworks may have been inspired by a scene early in Peter Jackson’s version of Fellowship of the Ring. Aside from the rampant destruction in a few scenes, I didn’t mind the chaos much, and I thought this holiday at the lake seemed like a pretty idyllic vacation, warring patriarchs aside. The comedy is pretty predictable stuff, but it nonetheless kept my parents and me laughing. If you’re looking for a light-hearted, summery flick for the family, I’d say Cheaper By the Dozen 2 fits the bill.