Delayed Reaction: Cheaper By The Dozen 2

The Pitch: There's still a dozen kids. This time, summer vacation at a lake. Oh, and add even more characters.

How I Came Into It: Cheaper By the Dozen is an entertaining enough movie. I can imagine there's a number of [currently] 18 year-olds out there who think of it fondly (Kind of like my generation loving something like The Page Master). In the years since it's come out, it's mostly good for seeing which of the kids continued working (Alyson Stoner sure grew up). The movie isn't all that remarkable though. You could give me a plot point from it or Yours, Mine, and Ours and I couldn't tell you which it came from.  So, I didn't go in with high hopes for a sequel.

Why I Saw It: (Club 50) I only like Steven Martin more. Each time I fill a hole in his filmography, I come away liking him more. I'm not sure what to make of that, but this certainly proves the rule. For such a large cast, I'm surprised how many characters the movie was able to service in under two hours. The tone is the same as the first and the new setting changes things up enough to not feel stale.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: There are 14 Bakers and 10 Murtaughs (Hi, little Taylor Lautner and Jamie King) and 94 minutes. That's a little under 4 minutes per character. As good as the movie was at servicing characters, there was plenty of fat to be trimmed. Anything else I didn't prefer about it can be countered with "It's a family friendly kids movie. What did you expect?".

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend