Cheaper by the Dozen 2 (2005)

Steve Martin
Bonnie Hunt
Piper Perabo
Eugene Levy
Hilary Duff
Carmen Electra
Tom Welling
Jaime King

Directed by Adam Shankman

Plot: The Baker family returns, but things are not as they once were. The kids are growing up and trying to start their own lives. One has graduated and moved on, one is graduating and leaving for college, and the first grand child is on the way. Unfortunately, Tom (Steve Martin) is not ready to lose any of the family. He brings them together for one last family vacation and finds himself at war with an old friend and dragging the family along for the ride.

Review: I love Steve Martin and think he is a genius. I also love these crazy family comedies with all kinds of nonsense going on. I was a big fan of the first film, but did not have high hopes for this one. To my surprise, the film was really enjoyable.

The cast comes together and looks like they never left. When watching these 2 films, I get the feeling these characters are really related. The story isn’t anything original or spectacular, but what I think makes this film work is that it is simple. No brain needed to see it, you just sit back and enjoy. I found it to be brilliant casting of Eugene Levy and Carmen Electra as a married couple. I expected to laugh because of the look of them together, but it actually worked and made it a better movie.

Steve Martin was vintage. He never seems to age, yet his abilities seem to improve. I was always a fan, but he is slowly becoming an actor like Bill Murray, who will get me to watch a film they are in just because they are in it. All the kids are in top form. As much as I enjoyed this film, I hope they end it here, because they ended it with a perfect bookend to the Baker family.

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