Yours, Mine & Ours - Austin American-Statesman movie review

'Yours, Mine & Ours': You'll already know how this ends

By Dale Roe
Austin American-Statesman

"Yours, Mine and Ours" is ostensibly a remake of the 1968 Henry Fonda/Lucille Ball film. It's worth noting, though, that while the original was based on a real-life couple, the remake seems to be based on so many other mediocre family comedies it could be called "Cheaper by the Dozen-and-a-Half."

Paramount Pictures

'Yours, Mine & Ours'

2 out of 5 stars

The verdict: Predictable pratfalls and outcomes nearly sink copycat family fare.

Director: Raja Gosnell
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rene Russo, Rip Torn, Linda Hunt
Run time: 88 minutes
Release date: November 23, 2005
Rating: PG for some mild crude humor.
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I begrudgingly have accepted that every family film since "Home Alone" has to have a scene where someone takes a flying paint bucket in the face or lands spread-eagled in a vat of pudding ("Yours, Mine and Ours" has a doozy). But it takes a certain disdain for the adults lugging their kids to these films to stage a forklift-induced pratfall into a kiddie pool filled with antifreeze-green slime inexplicably placed in the middle of a hardware store. (Is Nickelodeon Studios throwing a bone to fans of its Gak-infested TV shows?)

Fortunately, my suspension of disbelief had long since been shattered. That began when cartoonishly prudent, widowed Coast Guard admiral Dennis Quaid (his movie kids address him by his title instead of Dad) impulsively married touchy-feely (group hugs around the tribal talking stick, anyone?) high-school sweetheart Rene Russo.

They separately spring news of the nuptials on their children — he has eight, she has 10 — and move the whole brood-y bunch into a huge, fixer-upper lighthouse.

Predictably, the structured, scheduled admiral's kids don't like their sloppy, artsy new siblings and vice-versa. They hatch a plot to break up the 'rents by playing on their opposite natures (think "The Parent Trap" in reverse). If you guessed that the teamwork the children employ in this effort leads them to realize how much they like each other, that's because it's impossible not to guess just about everything that's going to happen in this movie.

Predictability aside, it could be worse. The family values espoused are overwhelmingly positive, and Quaid and Russo make an engaging, attractive couple. Linda Hunt has a nice turn as a housekeeper who has the appearance, voice and attitude of Edna Mode from "The Incredibles." And there are a few inspired moments, such as the foreshadowing when Russo tears up while watching the iconic factory scene from "An Officer and a Gentleman."

The child and teen actors are fine, if mostly anonymous. Yes, it is the rare movie that features 18 picture-perfect, model-cute kids, yet tosses in a belching pot-bellied pig just to be safe. And, OK, it was a questionable decision to write one of the younger male characters as a pint-sized caricature of Anna Nicole Smith decorator Bobby Trendy. But even that is relatively inoffensive.

In the end, that might be the biggest disappointment about "Yours, Mine and Ours." It's not a terrible movie, just bland and predictable.