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I
love Steve Martin and will see just about anything he does.
Mind you, I am a fan, more than anything else that he does,
of his stand-up routines, and his literary turns on essays
and novels. The man is comic genius.
However... he makes a lot of crap flicks.
Cheaper By the Dozen is not a crap flick. It is a cut
above what I would consider crap. It is pee. Let
me explain: The film is unsuprising, mildly relaxing,
and completely forgotten when finished. This is
pedestrian comedy, Everyone Loves Raymond, middle-America,
take-no-chances, get Hilary Duff in a movie, family fare...
with a heart. (Awwwwwwww.... ain't that sweet.)
So the point is, I'm the wrong insensitive brute to be
reviewing this.
Okay, that's a bravado lie. The fact is, when a little
bit of emotion appears on the screen, I do generally tend to
get very involved... for example, I was a tad bit wet around
the eyeballs at the end of Return of the King. This
flick, however, when it goes for drama, goes for safe,
family, everything will be o'tay drama, which proves only to
be a distraction to the comedy, which is forgotten for about
a half hour. In this space, it turns into a rather
painful look at a family almost falling apart for no real
important reason, and, almost inexplicably, the word divorce
comes up, with no real prep for this situation.
Funny... not really. Especially if you are part of
most of the statistics in this country. It's like
watching Rob Reiner's The Story of Us on a date. Not
what you want to be thinking about.
So, is it an uproarious Steve Martin laughfest. Not at
all. Is it a Terms of Endearment, heart wrenching
drama. Far from it. Cheaper by the Dozen is
merely a safe, unoriginal, mildly pleasing film meant to
please Granny and Grandpa and maybe Mom and Dad.
Will you regret seeing it?
Have you ever regretted peeing?
ADDENDUM: I just did some research and saw
that the gentleman who directed this is the same guy who
directed the Ashton Kutcher/Brittany Murphy Just Married
debacle... which was written by Sam Harper... who also wrote
Cheaper by the Dozen.. My main problem with that Just
Married: It was too realistic in it's representation
of couple-issues to be funny. It was the 20-Something
Story of Us. You've been there, it hurts, and you'd
rather not be thinking about, and all the brief funny
moments sandwiched between painful reality in the world
can't make it stop cutting you to the quick. In other
words... Levy doesn't understand the meaning of the escapist
quality of comedy. |
