(This review may contain spoilers).
I remember watching this film originally quite a while ago, but my niece really wanted to watch it today, so we put it on and watched together.
As feel-good films go, this was a really good one. The plot of the film wasn’t an original one, but it was an entertaining movie to watch and there were some really good comedy elements in it.
I felt this film did a good job of showing different personalities of the eighteen children. Although I couldn’t name most of the younger ones, I still felt they were really well-developed and although there were some of the cliches (cheerleader and creative artsy girl, for instance), all of them were, for the most part, likable characters and I enjoyed seeing them interact together, especially when the rivalry turned into the inevitable having to work together.
I liked the clear differences in the two adults’ parenting styles and how they clashed due to their entirely different personalities, even though they were clearly attracted to each other. I recognised a couple of the actors in this film, but on the whole, I felt that the actors playing the characters worked really well.
I really did enjoy watching this film and since I have it on DVD, it is one I would probably watch again. It’s a good family film with some really sweet emotional scenes and also some really good amusing scenes. The children were different enough and the family loyalty came through really well. It is similar to Cheaper by the Dozen, but I feel it deals with different issues.
