Cheaper by the Dozen 2003

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: A bad sitcom expanded to 98 excruciatingly unfunny minutes of family chaos, with Martin suffering every possible indignity and stain that can be inflicted on a good-guy daddy. Read more

Erik Lundegaard, Seattle Times: Less a movie than a testament to marketing. Read more

Robert K. Elder, Chicago Tribune: In a culture that tells us we can have it all -- a career, financial security and a family -- Cheaper by the Dozen seems a tad anachronistic. Read more

Richard Roeper, Ebert & Roeper: [A] frequently funny and thoroughly inspired effort ... Read more

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution: An uneven attempt to replicate the modest charms of an earlier Martin movie, Parenthood. Read more

Wesley Morris, Boston Globe: Most of Tom and Kate Baker's 12 children seem to have been flown in from a casting office in Burbank. Read more

Bruce Westbrook, Houston Chronicle: From playful mugging to tender affection, Martin exudes a strong star persona, and he and Hunt share romantic warmth despite a dearth of alone time. Read more

Michael Booth, Denver Post: Hollywood has tried too hard, attempting to re-create organic family life through excessive artificiality. Read more

Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly: A sprightly, shiny, updated fantasy of family togetherness and teamwork. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Fifty-three years of progress later, and this typifies the stuff that families have come to expect in the good name of entertainment -- the laughs are way down, but the decibel level has gone through the roof. Read more

Philip Wuntch, Dallas Morning News: Formulas are essential for any family of 12 children. Cheaper by the Dozen follows an abundance of formulas, all used before. Read more

Jon Strickland, L.A. Weekly: Nobody here, especially Martin, looks as if he's having much fun, apart from a dizzy cameo by Ashton Kutcher. Read more

Jan Stuart, Newsday: Comic brio triumphs over logic in a frothy holiday package that delivers just what you'd expect and then some, down to the inevitable end-credit outtakes. Read more

Lisa Rose, Newark Star-Ledger: The cartoonish chaos will engage little ones, while Tom's struggle to balance career and home time should keep parents' eyes on the screen. Read more

Jack Mathews, New York Daily News: There is not a frame of Cheaper that doesn't feel contrived. It fails the most fundamental test of movie logic. Read more

Stephen Holden, New York Times: This remake of the 1950 movie is a bubbling crockpot of farcical mush to warm the tummies of anyone who really and truly misses The Brady Bunch. Read more

Roger Moore, Orlando Sentinel: It wastes Hunt's whiplash-quick timing and further reduces the once-wild, once-crazy Martin to the generic father figure he has collected checks for in too many recent movies. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: Lighthearted fun, providing little character bits for all of the family members. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: It's not just a feel-good holiday movie, though audiences, especially youngsters, will certainly walk out of it feeling good. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: You don't so much watch this witless, charmless, pointless fiasco as sit hostage, waiting for it to end. Read more

Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star: We are not only asked to find the barbarian Baker brood a model of familial loyalty and unconditional devotion, we're also asked to regard with contempt everyone else who does not share the Bakers' unbridled consumerist anarchy. Read more

Time Out: Levy directs what amounts to an almost plotless - and entirely pointless - slice of controlled chaos as if it were an expensive pilot for a TV sitcom. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: So calculatedly cast with popular kid stars that it seems a focus group was guiding all the choices. Read more

Robert Koehler, Variety: Knows no tone between schmaltzy / gooey and slapstick / gross-out. Read more

Ed Park, Village Voice: Adapted from the 1949 memoir by two children of pioneering efficiency experts Frank and Lilliann Gilbreth, the film now has a title that doesn't really make sense, but it gets modern-day mileage for its even more improbable premise. Read more

Ann Hornaday, Washington Post: Martin and Hunt give the production a mellow warmth. And Levy has cast an appealingly diverse bunch of kids to play the young Bakers. Read more

Desson Thomson, Washington Post: This is a movie that knows its audience and realizes it doesn't need much of a story to hit that audience, literally, where it lives. Read more