Yours, Mine & Ours (2005)

I've never seen the original version of this movie but it seems like a decent-ish idea for a movie. A mother of ten and a father of eight get married and hijinks of course ensue within the over packed household. Nothing special but its an idea that would probably merit a watch if nothing was on television and you needed to distract your kids for a while, with the bonus of originally starring the legendary Lucielle Ball and Henry Fonda. So let's take that and replace it Rene Russo (best known for generic action movies and a bit part in Thor) and Dennis Quaid (the guy who you're always surprised is related to an Academy Award winning actor like Randy Quaid) and hire all the most prominent tweenybopper actors that no one will remember in ten years (thank you, Nickelodeon Studios). Bing bang boom, its Yours, Mine, and Ours. It's hard to describe and even imagine how such a generic and seemingly simple to handle story could devolve into such a morally bankrupt movie. A lot of this is attributed to the characters. Pretty much all of them, from kid A to kid R, are just the kind of kids who even the most forgiving of parents would consider bringing back the belt. The kids that the story actually focuses around are Phoebe, Christina, Dylan, and William, who are actively plotting to split their parents up because...they don't like each other? Great motive, kids, split up a pair of people who love each other because you don't like their kids. This later gets dropped in favor of that now they hate Quaid's parenting (even...Quaid's kids...what?) and focus all their efforts around sabotaging Quaid specifically. These kids get very little development because frankly the movie seems to want to do every single high school cliché with them--Will is trying to get elected for class president but he's not doing it COOOOL enough, Phoebe's boyfriend is trying to hit on Christina out of nowhere, and Dylan is just lurking around the background being a sub-par Drake Bell character. The rest of the kids have the grand honor of being there for nothing more than unfunny slapstick that might as well have a guy going "Wah Wah Waaaaahhhhhaahahah' in the background. While these kids are annoying, I'll give them credit that they're nothing on the batshit insane performance that Russo and Quaid turned in. The movie is trying very hard to push the advocacy of less firm parenting and less discipline by making Quaid look like some comical bad guy in his hardass military style parenting. The problem is, if any group of kids needed their asses smacked into 'ship shape', its Russo's kids. They basically ruin the house with some sort of paint explosion (which Russo's character bends over backwards to blame Quaid for, even claiming he BRAINWASHED them to organize her work room) and then throw a raging kegger when the two go out to a ceremony. Again, Russo seems well and good to forgive this despite the obvious underage drinking, BMX biking down her stairs, and someone ordering over 300 dollars worth of pizza that she's probably going to end up billed for.All of this is in the spirit of 'breaking them up' but Russo will have no such thing as discipline for the fact that her kids just tore her house apart and ordered what looked to be three kegs of alcohol. Even when her kids ADMIT that they were actively trying to split her and her husband up, the best she can manage is a dull whisper of shock (with of course no punishment for the kids). In the face of these kids' actions, Quaid's hardcore parenting style seems far more reasonable than Russo's hippy dippy approach. When he threatens to send everyone in the party to military school I was quietly hoping that all of Russo and Quaid's awful kids would go with them--they sure could use it with the way they behave. And I don't even like military school as a behavioral correction method. By the end of the movie I wasn't hoping for this family to stay together. I was hoping for Quaid to pick up his kids, get the hell out, and leave Russo's family to destroy itself with its sheer idiocy. Either that or take up that hammer threat. This is poorly directed movie blind to what its saying, trying to cover that fact up with a bizarre politically correct recasting and a sappy ending that felt like every character was forced to play into. I wouldn't watch it again and I wouldn't really be keen on letting kids watch it either. Bad acting, bad messages, and just an overall bad feel. Stay away from this movie.

Let's be honest here: there are films which are pretty much an art form such as "Seven Samurai" or "The Grand Illusion" and then there are "just movies": action movies, comedies, sci-fi, recent slew of comic strip/toy movies (least favorite to me) and one badly underrepresented category, which incidentally makes the most money in Hollywood (they did not get the memo though): family movies. Notice I did not call them "films", although to be able to entertain the whole family without blood, gore, sex, violence, war, darkness and such, is quite an achievement today worthy of the name "film".Family movies are meant to entertain the whole family but in an entirely positive, relaxed and children safe way. This film achieved all of those, while many family favorites, we have to admit, do have scenes that make us cringe and are not really appropriate for children (E.g. Indiana Jones series).Within that domain of family entertainment, "Yours, Mine and Ours" is one fine movie. Making a film with 20 kids is bordering with madness - the old adage of Hollywood is "No animals, no children." Making it funny and interesting to watch without resorting to cheap thrills of fast car rides, sex scenes/nudity, guns or simply shallow behavior is commendable. They managed to pull it off with no less than 20 children and a few pets to boot. That in itself deserves praise.The film is a romantic comedy wrapped around tons of kids doing their shenanigans, a new house, pets, and so on. Again, if you are aware that this is a family film, and lower your guard, rather then expect 20 kids to earn Oscars, you will enjoy it.Both Rene Russo and Dennis Quaid were excellent, and truly funny. The kids were funny too (and older ones obviously acted better than their younger "siblings" which is to be expected given the age difference).If you have a child, and would like to have a film to watch, than this would be the one. Children laugh through the entire film, and there is still more than enough for adults to enjoy.For being a daring, well executed and thoroughly enjoyable family fun, I give it 10 stars. Let's hope we get to see more of similar movies in the future.

Dennis Quaid is a Coast Guard Commander with eight kids raised with rules and schedules. Rene Russo has four kids and six adopted kids with no rules and a freethinking lifestyle. Faster than you can say "Brady Bunch," these two former loves take a hunch and decide to merge their families. The resulting movie is pretty much as expected, a lot of fighting, arguing and expected destruction. This movie is much more than an update to the Henry Fonda/Lucille Ball; like "The Parent Trap" before it, it's both a reboot and update, something that doesn't always work, but there's also a nice love story behind the kids conspiring to break up their parents marriage and as a result, bond over their duplicitous action. It's quite predictable, but the end result is still worth a look-see. After all, even if you know where you're going, you still want to see the trip that gets there. The only drawback to the movie is that there is not a recognizable face among the kids except for Danielle Panabaker (CSI, Phil Of The Future…) and comedian David Koeschner (Hannah Montana) who appears an acquaintance of the father. It's a small nitpick, but its not enough to bar anyone from renting this movie.

WAY overdone! It was an awesome idea. It could have been great. I wish that it had better acting, a more executed plot, and maybe a little less romance.It is not necessarily a bad movie it just isn't a good one if you are over the age of 9. The bad acting combined with the romance created the ultimate sob story.I wonder if the director was just trying to make a fool out of the actors.I liked it the first time but the second time I watched it, I couldn't even finish it. At first, the pig eating pizza was funny but the second time it was just annoying cheese.