Yours, Mine & Ours

YOURS, MINE & OURS — * 1/2 — Dennis Quaid, Rene Russo, Rip Torn; rated PG (slapstick violence, vulgarity, mild profanity); Carmike 12 and Ritz 15 Theaters; Century Theatres 16; Cinemark 24 at Jordan Landing; Megaplex 12 at the Gateway; Megaplex 17 at Jordan Commons.

The remake of the 1968 hit comedy "Yours, Mine & Ours" is pretty much the same movie as the 2003 remake of "Cheaper by the Dozen," with Dennis Quaid taking Steve Martin's place as the family patriarch and butt of several painfully unfunny, slapstick gags.

At times, "Yours, Mine & Ours" seems to be little more than an excuse to put Quaid through one embarrassing situation after another. After a while, you give up trying to count the number of times that his character gets hit in the head or groin, or slips on or into something slimy or gooey.

And that's unfortunate, since Quaid and co-star Rene Russo make an appealing onscreen couple. But like the fairly obnoxious offspring of their respective characters, the film does all it can to keep them apart.

Quaid stars as Frank Beardsley, a widower who's recently been appointed to take over the Coast Guard Academy. Frank is also trying to balance time as a father and resurrect his dormant personal life, though his eight children are making that last task difficult.

Meanwhile, his former high school sweetheart, Helen North (Russo), is experiencing the same thing. She has 10 children of her own, six of them adopted. But when the two are reunited at their high school reunion, sparks lead to a reignited romance and a quickie marriage.

As expected, there's a resulting clash in parenting styles. Frank's tightly wound kids are confused by their new mother's nourish-the-child methods, while her free-spirited brood doesn't respond well to his attempts at discipline.

Director Raja Gosnell has already proved his incompetence with this type of frantic material, having made messes of the "Scooby-Doo" movies and "Big Momma's House." And attempts at sweetness here are saccharine at best.

Gosnell owes both Quaid and Russo a huge debt, as they really do try to salvage the material — even if it's not worth the effort.

"Yours, Mine & Ours" is rated PG for scenes of slapstick violence (including water and mud fights, rough-housing and various pratfalls), crude humor about and references to bodily functions, and scattered use of mild profanity (mostly religiously based). Running time: 88 minutes.

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E-mail: jeff@desnews.com