Cheaper by the Dozen

2022 - 3 - 18

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Us Weekly"

The New Bakers! Meet the 'Cheaper By the Dozen' Remake Cast (Us Weekly)

Per the streaming service's official synopsis, the movie is a “fresh take” on the 2003 film of the same name. The logline reads, “It is the story of the raucous ...

“When I first read the script … I wanted to be a part of something that our whole family could watch together and, you’ve seen some of my work, I don’t do a lot of family-friendly type of stuff,” the Bring It On alum told Entertainment Tonight ahead of the premiere. Per the streaming service’s official synopsis, the movie is a “fresh take” on the 2003 film of the same name. Introducing, the Baker family!

Cheaper by the Dozen (unknown)

The storyline combines the sugary sentiments of a Hallmark Christmas movie and the humor level of a basic cable show from the '90s.

Responding to racist micro-aggressions is unfortunately most of what Union is given to do, though she is, as always, graceful and gorgeous, here in a series of excellent hairdos. And the family has a daughter in a wheelchair, but no ramps? And somehow, though this is a story about a big family, and it was co-written by Kenya Barris who created the brilliant and hilarious “Black-ish,” with heightened but believable and endearing child characters, this movie spends more time with Paul. He is played by Braff, who was heightened but believable in “Scrubs” and touching in “ Garden State,” but he cannot make this character particularly appealing. Dom loves his kids and is generous with their siblings, but he has been away most of the time and when he is there Paul feels threatened. As Roger Ebert, also a fan of the book, pointed out, the 2003 film by that name and its 2005 sequel jettisoned everything but the number of children, with a modern-day story about a college football coach played by Steve Martin. Those films were sitcom-ish but mildly amusing. Paul is a chef who had three children with his first wife, Kate ( Erika Christensen). One of their children is adopted, the son of close friends who were killed in an accident.

Cheaper by the Dozen Review (unknown)

Disney's reboot of Cheaper by the Dozen, starring Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union, can be as haphazard as the premise.

In fact, for what it's worth, this story hits you with a much more reasonable nine kids scenario, with Paul, Zoe, and cousin Seth (Luke Prael) making up the rest of the "dozen." The messiness and madness are still abound, but the design of it feels nicely updated and more organic. There are enough unique angles here to make this crowded clan feel extra energetic, but the downside is the blending of astute and stupid. It is notable, however, that Cheaper by the Dozen doesn't present an interracial blended family without also addressing the imbalance between Paul's privilege and the experiences of bigotry that Zoe endures. This new Cheaper by the Dozen plays like a series of chapters strung together. This structure, of break-out bits and mini-arcs, helps balance out the large ensemble, though there's still a handful of Baker kids who don't quite make the cut, spotlight-wise. Starring Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union, this latest incarnation of the Bakers' overcrowded homestead is a mirthful mixed bag of biting humor and shmaltzy magic fixes.

Cheaper by the Dozen review – breezy Disney remake of family comedy (unknown)

The remake of the 2003 film – itself a remake – follows the Bakers, a mixed family of 12, headed by Zach Braff and Gabrielle Union.

(Dom, a black man skeptical of Paul, launches into a speech about how Paul will never be able to understand how it feels to be profiled by police, let alone prepare his black children for it.) The latter is one of several moments where the film seems unsure how it wants to handle the elephant in the room of racism. (Zoey schooling a haughty, racist country club mom.) As a subtle condition to be addressed obliquely? Paul was married to the spacey, LA yoga girl Kate (Erika Christensen), with whom he had three kids (one, a child of South Asian descent named Haresh, played by Aryan Simhadri, was adopted as a baby). Zoey was married to NFL pro-bowler Dom (Timon Kyle Durrett), with whom she had two kids. The new mansion, bougie neighborhood and private school puts a strain on the family in obvious, predictable ways: eldest daughter Deja (Journee Brown, a standout among the ensemble), a basketball star, gets benched in favor of the teammate whose surname is on the gymnasium. t feels very Disney+ to have Cheaper by the Dozen premiering on the company’s streaming service, Disney+, in 2022.

Zach Braff Embraces Dad Jokes And Hijinks In Disney's 'Cheaper By ... (Forbes)

I said that if I'm going to do a family movie, I want to do one where the parents will be cracking up just as much as children. This is the kind of family ...

When you get to be an actor of a certain age, at a certain point, you’ve done this so many times with the pictures. The fun thing improving with the children was I could come up with a funny idea, and Gail, the director, liked it when I did this, but I would give one of the kids a funny line, and we would riff back and forth. Again, when I invest in restaurants, I just handed someone money to someone I trusted. I was saying at lunch today that I’ve both made money and lost money in restaurants, so I can relate to both feelings. As my brothers always tell me, I have all the fun, wind the kids up, and then hand them back to their parents. Thompson: At the beginning of Cheaper by the Dozen, there are many earlier photos of all the people in it. I think the dad joke is one of the most unappreciated types of humor. This is what I’m talking about.’ This is the kind of family movie I’d want to be in. “I said that if I’m going to do a family movie, I want to do one where the parents will be cracking up just as much as children. I said that if I’m going to do a family movie, I want to do one where the parents will be cracking up just as much as children. I didn’t know until recently that, initially, Cheaper by the Dozen was a book. I caught up with the actor to talk about the movie, Scrubs turning 21 and art imitating life.

Gabrielle Union on 'Cheaper By the Dozen,' How It's Relatable, and Controlling On-Set Mayhem (unknown)

Gabrielle Union discusses Cheaper By the Dozen, how the film is relatable, how they controlled on-set mayhem, and what made her break in a scene.

Yes! That should have been meeting one.” We still try to pull people in – people who’ve never had a shot, or people who got put out to pasture prematurely – and we try to center those writers in the middle of their own narratives that they’re creating. And then, we have The Perfect Find coming out, about an older woman and younger man, and we don’t get to see that with Black folks very often. If we’re able to figure out how to be more efficient with everything that we do, at home and certainly on set, we can figure out a way to have a little bit more organized chaos, so you can anticipate when it’s gonna get a little bit more hectic, at different points in the day. A lot of folks might have been the it-girl or the it-guy 20 years ago, had a hit, and then fell off, and people think their talent suddenly evaporated. We have to all do our jobs well, so that everyone is able to make a living and make it home to their own families and spend time with their own kids. So, you have to make sure that they’re focused, make sure their bodies are settled, and make sure their minds are focused. You formed your production company, I’ll Have Another, in 2018 with the goal of telling stories that center marginalized communities with their specific points of view in an authentic manner. That makes me the bad cop, and Zach [Braff] got to be fun uncle, but that’s how we had to balance it out to make sure we got everything done. I try to gently remind kids that, even though they’re kids and we’ve been doing it a long time, sometimes we all forget what it is to be a professional. UNION: When we were not on set, when we were milling around and they’d call us to set, and everyone was slowly getting up and taking their places, we might joke and laugh and whatnot. Zoey (Gabrielle Union) and Paul (Zach Braff), who also own a local eatery that serves round-the-clock breakfast, have a lot going on, but they seem to always manage to stare down the challenges and celebrate the successes. Trying to figure out how to maintain my sanity at home in chaos and at work in chaos usually comes down to efficiency.