Cheaper by the Dozen (2022)

Cheaper by the Dozen (2022)

3/10

Starring

Gabrielle Union

Zach Braff

 

Directed by Gail Lerner

 

I am black and fully African who spends way too much time watching movies. I am fed up with Hollywood trying to now bridge the gap in the lack of racial diversity in Hollywood and doing it poorly. An all-white movie is not a bad thing when the movie delivers. A movie with all the racial diversity of a New York subway and is poorly written, directed like a NickToon program for children does not solve the problem. The bad acting of the child actors was even worse, I have seen better acting in churches when children act out the nativity scene. Boring is the understatement for all that is wrong with this movie. Then the ad placements by Cîroc and Cheetos what happened to being subtle

The political correctness and the whole idea of diversity has ruined movies for me. I have no problem with the new redesign of a movie. I had no problem with the Cheaper by the Dozen to have children from one side, add up with children from another side. Add a little shake of adoption, with unexpected pregnancies and viola number twelve shows up. My problem was when this movie moved from just being fun to being a current husband vs ex-husband battle. Adopted dad vs biological dad battle. The movie for me made absolutely no sense when this started happening in the early minutes.

As said the couple in question is Paul and Zoe Baker (Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union a not-so-great onscreen pair). This is their second marriage with each first marriage ending with children, add the surprises and they got to twelve.

We see from the get-go that the way they keep their family going is surviving from any cheap help they can find. Things are not going on magically when Zoe’s ex (Dom) decided to move closer to the married couple to be close to his children. This did not go well with Paul who is intimidated by Dom’s stature, money, and fame. Add to that they are facing some financial challenges to which Paul wants to sell their family business. This new change and the personal challenge Paul is facing is making it hard for the family to stick together and function as a unit.

Suddenly, I have found respect for the older Cheaper by the Dozen with Steve Martin. At least there the children were his and his wife. We did not have ex-wife and ex-husband having a say in anything. The fun was watching this family try to keep it all together and finding out that they can’t all the time and watching everything go up in smoke as we see them try to make it all fit back again.

The fun then was the dramatic element that the movie brought into the game, not some racial differences and dad battles that stopped being funny in 2005.

This new Disney+ addition to the mix is a no no.