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Every once in a while on TV or in the newspaper, someone will mention the worst movies of all time. Inevitably Ed Wood’s "Plan 9 From Outer Space" will be near or at the top of the list. That’s simply too easy a target. For me, the worst movies are those made by people that should have known better as opposed to not knowing enough. In the bad movie sweepstakes, incompetence is always trumped by indifference.
"Yours, Mine and Ours," a remake of a cute but hardly classic 1968 movie starring Henry Fonda and Lucille Ball, may not even make it into the top 10 of my list of bad movies. It will, however, be way up there on my list of turkeys for 2005. It is by far the most patronizing, cynical and overall insulting excuse for a film I’ve seen all year.
Dennis Quaid plays Frank Beardsley, a Coast Guard admiral who is transferred back to his hometown of New London, Conn. A widower, Frank has eight children and runs his family like a tight ship. Helen North (Rene Russo), a handbag designer, also has eight children, but encourages them to freely express themselves.
Frank and Helen were high-school sweethearts who were altar-bound but, for reasons we’re never told, went their separate ways. Thirty years later, they meet up at a high-school reunion and it’s love at second sight. Before long, the two are married and keeping house in a converted lighthouse; hijinks ensue.
To be honest, my expectations for this movie were not too high. It was obvious from the previews this film existed for the sole purpose of capitalizing on the success of the Steve Martin-Bonnie Hunt remake "Cheaper by the Dozen." Up until the point where Helen and Frank bump into each other in a restaurant, the movie’s really not bad. We see little snippets of each family, obviously setting up what’s to come. That’s the first 10 minutes and it’s all downhill from there.
What happens next pretty much sets the stage for the debacle to follow. When Frank and Helen reunite there is no courtship whatsoever. They elope. It’s obvious it was a plot device so the audience can get to the main reason for the movie’s existence – to see an endless series of barely connected skits mostly of mediocre. but high-energy, slapstick. Plot points appear and disappear with lack of warning, too.
The shame in all of this is Quaid and Russo have genuine screen chemistry. Or maybe I was just sensing their mutual disgust at this regrettable career move. I wouldn’t worry too much. Their careers should survive. Let’s hope their movie doesn’t.
Yours, Mine and Ours
PG
In theatres Thursday
One and a half out of four
Recommended Rental
March of the Penguins
G
Available Tuesday
The second highest-grossing documentary of all time behind Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 911," "The March of the Penguins" was directed by French filmmaker Luc Jacquet and narrated by Morgan Freeman.
Jacquet and his crew endured adverse conditions in Antarctica for a year while filming a colony of Emperor penguins. The hundreds of penguins were making their annual return to their breeding ground, far inland from the ocean. The birds march single file for 70 miles or more in temperatures as low 128 below.
