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Rating: Country: USA Release Date: February 28, 2006 Distributor: Paramount Home Video Director: · Raja Gosnell Cast: · Dennis Quaid · Rene Russo · Rip Torn · Jerry O'Connell · David Koechner Related Sites: ·IMDb: Yours, Mine & Ours ·Rotten Tomatoes: Yours, Mine & Ours
Grade: C+
If you're my age (or perhaps slightly older) you'll fondly recall "Yours, Mine & Ours" as one of the comedies Lucille Ball starred in without Desi Arnaz. Mrs. Helen North was the widow of a U.S. Navy man, who meets up with Frank Beardsley (played by Peter Fonda), a widower who shares something in common with Helen: kids in abundance.
If you're expecting the same story told with new actors here, you get something almost but not quite entirely unlike the original. The put-upon parents have been replaced by Dennis Quaid ("The Day After Tomorrow") and Rene Russo ("Two for the Money". Frank Beardsley has gone from the Navy to the Coast Guard. Helen North has gone from the military picture entirely, being instead a freewheeling, anything-goes, red-state fashion artiste. In keeping with the multicultural characterization she is intended to represent, a good portion of the North children are adoptees from multiple ethnicities.
But the parents, ultimately, don't matter in this remake. It's a Nickelodeon picture, so it's natural to expect that the focus is going to be on the children, with the parents around largely to slip on things, fall face-first into things, or have things poured over them. The kids naturally hate each other; the North children chafe under Frank's law-and-order approach to running a sane household, while the Beardsley kids can't stand the noise and mess the North kids bring with them. They finally unite to combat a common enemy: mom and dad. Figuring if they ignore their differences and work as a team to separate their parents, they can all get back to their old comfortable lives.
The Norths and the Beardsleys work on their answering
machine greeting.
The plan works. The problem is, by this time the kids have bonded into family. Suddenly, it's a last ditch plan to get dad back and stop this separation from happening before dad sails out to sea and moves the Beardsleys to Washington D.C.
Raja Gosnell is in familiar territory with "Yours, Mine & Ours", having had experience editing such feel-good hits as "Pretty Woman", "Home Alone", and "Mrs. Doubtfire". But directing is far different from editing, as his history has shown, with less than memorable films like "Home Alone 3" and "Scooby-Doo" (and it's sequel). As remakes go, the Steve Martin version of "Cheaper by the Dozen" came closer to its original, and delivered more original humor than does the new "Yours, Mine & Ours". Quaid and Russo can't be slighted for their performances and, to be fair, neither can the kids. This one falls squarely on the production itself, which somehow becomes far less than the sum of its parts. Jerry O'Connell (Sliders) cameos as the agent of Helen's fashion designs, and David Koechner ("Anchorman") is one of Frank's old buddies and over-eager comrade-in-arms.
In the final analysis, this isn't a bad film. It just isn't a really good one. If you have a house full of kids, it's fodder for entertainment night -- a decent rental with some pizza and Coca-Cola, but not one you're going to pause when you leave the room for a potty break.
Special Features include the ability to toggle on the commentary track with Director Raja Gosnell, a peek inside the lighthouse with all the cast members introducing their characters, a featurette on the writing of a script for eighteen kids, a separate feature for the casting of each family, some advice for those who want to be child stars, deleted scenes, and other minutiae.
Previews on this disc include "Aeon Flux", "Last Holiday", "All You've Got", and The Brady Bunch Complete Fourth Season. Audio options allow for English 5.1 Surround, English 2.0 Surround, and French, with subtitles in English and Spanish. The Audio setup screen also provides alternate access to the toggle for the track commentary.
Yours, Mine & Ours Disc Guide
Main Feature
"'Yours, Mine & Ours' - Inside the Lighthouse" (16:30)
"18 Kids - One Script: The Writing of 'Yours, Mine & Ours'" (5:22)
"Casting the North Family" (7:02)
"Casting the Beardsley Family" (5:47)
"Your Big Break! - Advice for Aspiring Young Actors" (5:35)
"Setting Sail with the Coast Guard" (3:11)
"Behind the Scenes Video Diary" (8:38)
Deleted Scenes (with optional commentary)
Theatrical Trailers
