Cheaper by the Dozen was surprisingly both better and worse than I though it would be.

Let’s start with the worse. First, as a comedy, Dozen isn’t that funny. The vast majority of the jokes are focused around the size of the family and its complications. Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt play the parents of the twelve children. Though much of it is surely recognizable to those of large families, a lot of the humor is slapstick. Wild kids wrecking havoc while the parents try to maintain control.

Strangely enough, Ashton Kutcher, who plays the boyfriend of the oldest daughter, actually takes some of the films funniest moments in a fairly self-deprecating role. And now the apocalypse is nigh – I have just said that Ashton Kutcher was the funniest part of a movie.

A bigger problem than Dozen’s lack of humor is its lack of structure. The plot involves the father’s choice to move the family to another city so he can coach football at a Div. 1 college while his wife leaves home for a three week book tour for a book she has just published. The lack of parental presence in the home causes the family to fall apart in way such as the rebellion of the oldest son (Tom Welling) and the younger children going nuts.

Everything is eventually tied together but it feels more like a trash bag is being wrapped up than that a structured plot is reaching its climax. Dozen also uses a lot of contrived scenarios and dialogue that usually just falls flat.

On the other side of the spectrum, Cheaper by the Dozen was also much better than I expected. Though it’s not clear exactly why the father must make the choice he does in the end, the overall effect is certainly positive. Loose ends do come together, to a degree, and a genuine feeling that families really are worth the trouble comes across. While it’s frequently silly, Cheaper by the Dozen still manages to be genuinely sweet.