What's funnier than a pig swallowing a cell phone and Dennis Quaid being covered in paint (in one scene) and glue (in an entirely separate mishap)? Stumped? Then don't miss Yours, Mine And Ours, a family film whose comic vocabulary begins with pratfalls and ends with cute animals reacting to said pratfalls.
Remaking a 1968 film that starred Lucille Ball and Henry Fonda, this version hews close to the original premise. Quaid plays a widowed naval officer with eight children. Rene Russo, playing a woman who's also lost her spouse, co-stars as a quirky designer with 10 kids of her own, some adopted from all over the globe. He's neat and orderly. She's touchy-feely. The only thing they have in common is a past as high-school sweethearts, but at their 25th class reunion they find there's enough sparks to reignite their old flame and get married on the spur of the moment. Can this crazy Red State/Blue State, khakis/tie-dyes, Tim McGraw/Melissa Etheridge pairing find a way to live under one roof?
Perhaps the better question is this: Can it all be stretched to feature length? And, surprisingly, Yours, Mine And Ours finds ways to make it the film to pick for those faced with the unenviable task of choosing between it and the Steve Martin-starring Cheaper By The Dozen. For one, Russo and Quaid give actual performances in place of Martin's barely concealed contempt for material that's beneath him. For another, there's no Hilary Duff. Not that any of the kids in this cast stand out (tough to do when there's 18 little faces vying for the spotlight), but they're all thoroughly non-toxic. That's true of the film as well, which is pretty painless by kiddie movie standards, although anyone who can tie his or her own shoes should probably try to drop off the kids and sneak into something, anything, playing next door.