"Cheaper by the Dozen" a harmless but only vaguely tolerable renovation

Cheaper by the Dozen (2022)

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with modernizing oft-remade material, especially when the source dates back to a 1948 autobiographical novel. 2022’s “Cheaper by the Dozen” will have been the third film by that name. (Or, it's the fourth if you count “Cheaper by the Dozen 2,” which existed in a 2005 world where Carmen Elektra played Eugene Levy’s trophy wife). Nevertheless, this mediocre Disney+ renovation is more vaguely tolerable than outright likable with its heart in the right place and keeping together such blandly wholesome pablum. 

Gabrielle Union and Zach Braff star as Zoey and Paul Baker, a biracial married couple leading one big happy blended family of dreamers with their nine kids and two fur babies named Bark Obama and Joe Biten (and later Paul’s troublemaking nephew to make a dozen while Paul’s sister is in rehab). This is both Zoey and Paul’s second marriage, and it’s here to stay. Zoey’s former NFL star ex-husband Dom (Timon Kyle Durrett) still drops in to see his two children and Paul’s free-spirited yogi ex-wife Kate (Erika Christensen) freeloads as the live-in “babysitter” and to (barely) spend time with her three kids. Paul, working as a chef, and Zoey, working the front of house, run their own mom-and-pop breakfast spot with their kids, but money is still tight. Opportunity arrives (out of nowhere) when Paul’s hot-sweet-savory sauce catches the eye of two investors (twins Brittany Daniel and Cynthia Daniel). This means the Bakers get to leave Echo Park and move to a private McMansion community in Calabasas, but is the grass always greener? 

The 1950 original film is beloved (and it can be heard on TV in one scene), but this “Cheaper by the Dozen” is closer to the 2003 update, retaining the Baker namesake and matching the wackiness. Even if it occasionally tested one’s threshold for physical slapstick, that Steve Martin-Bonnie Hunt family comedy was warm, sweet, and good-humored. This time, the laughs just aren’t there, and the sentimentality gets laid on with a trowel. This reboot is the kind of generic, almost condescendingly cutesy family fare where the adults mug and the kids are all precocious, thanks to an overeager directorial style by director Gail Lerner (who makes her first feature after directing TV). Zach Braff competing in a Dad Dance-off at a high school basketball game, ending with a split that makes the gymnasium crowd go “Oooooooh,” is the brand of lame comedy that we’re working with here. One is almost surprised the movie doesn’t end with a cast dance-along to Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family.” 

The screenplay by Kenya Barris & Jenifer Rice-Genzuk Henry (TV's "Black-ish" and "Grown-ish") is extremely formulaic, forcing Zoey to take on the household and the family business while Paul is out of town when convinced to build a franchise. Will they learn that they don’t need to franchise their business to be happy? Meanwhile, there are several mini subplots for the kids involving two teen romances and school bullying. Being set in a politically correct 2022, white privilege and racial profiling are addressed and worthy of discussion in a family film. There’s even a “Black Lives Matter” sign in the upstairs window of the Baker home. As progressive, all-inclusive, and idealistic as the movie wants to be, one feels the push-pull gears of Disney wanting its kid-friendly, sitcom-ready silliness and the script wanting to have honest discussions about the Black experience. When the film settles down for Paul and Dom to have a dad-to-dad talk about raising a Black child, it seems to be dropped in from an entirely different movie, resulting in this otherwise emotionally true and deftly acted scene almost ringing false. 

Braff is likable, albeit not very funny in Corny Dad mode, and Union can’t help but be radiant and handle everything with grace, but these two have zero chemistry with each other. Though every Baker kid at least gets one trait apiece (Deja is a basketball star, twin Luna likes to wear over-the-top outfits to school, Harley is a punk rocker in a wheelchair, etc.), maybe four of the ten teen-to-child actors are able to register. It’s hard not to feel bad for Erika Christensen, who’s at least game to be loopy as Paul’s ex-wife Kate who (for some odd reason) continues to live under the same roof. The reliably funny June Diane Raphael does show up as an ignorant Calabasas housewife, but her "Karen" role is to be the butt of the joke. Finally, it feels good to laugh a little when an airport attendant (played by Christina Anthony) lands the funniest lines and calls out Braff's Paul.

“Cheaper by the Dozen” is harmless enough without being a very good movie—it's actually more of a product to gain more streaming subscribers—but its earnest intentions within the story at least make it difficult to hate. With it still being a toss-up what’s more eye-rollingly clunky between the flat jokes and the cloying emotions, this would be much easier to write off if it didn’t try squeezing in something positive and relevant to say.

Grade: C -

Disney released “Cheaper by the Dozen” (107 min.) on Disney+ on March 18, 2022.