Ben Myron

Martin reprises the role of Tom Baker, father of twelve and husband to wife Kate (the sparkling, grounded Bonnie Hunt). In an effort to bond the family one final time before grandkids are born and chickens fly the coop, Tom cloyingly convinces the clan to vacation at their old lakefront haunt. There, they meet their nemeses: the clean-cut white-teethed Murtaugh family led by perfectionist papa Jimmy, played by the painfully underutilized Eugene Levy.

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In case that hasn't tipped you off, my gripes about The Mod Squad, a movie based on a late-sixties, early-seventies TV show that wasn't that great to begin with, should probably clue you in. I am not saying starring, because anyone who would act in this film and consider themselves a star for it is either a drunk or has an agent that's a drunk, probably the latter. I can forgive Giovanni Ribisi, on the account of the fact that he's acted in good movies (unlike Epps and Danes, who rarely even get close to a good role). He's been in Gus Van Sant and he even does a good job among the twentysomething shoot-the-actors while making them popular sitcom of Friends, where several good actors seem to go to work the bad acting out of their system (i.e. Lisa Kudrow). I maybe can forgive Dennis Farina, who is at least killed off before the movie gets really bad.

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Swept Away more than doubled that.

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Now there's Cheaper by the Dozen, a stale take on Walter Lang's 1950s farce of the same name that is based on the real-life story of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, the parents of 12 children. Here the original Gilbreth becomes Thomas Baker (Martin). Get it? A Baker's dozen? No, the jokes don't get much better than that one, unless you laugh when an athletic supporter lands in a pot of spaghetti sauce and Martin bellows, "Pasta de la crotch!"

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