When Tom Backer and his future wife to be Mary were in college they had big dreams and plans for the future. Tom wanted to be a big time coach of his alma matter Northwestern University in Chicago and Mary wanted to be a big time sports writer for the Chicago Tribune. Their futures seemed bright and for awhile they lived them and the big city life. But after their first three children they decided to sacrifice it all to move to a small town where they could raise their ever growing brood. Twelve kids and twenty three years later they are quite happy living a hectic small town life until their once big dreams come knocking at their doors once more. Tom Baker has been offered a job as the head football coach at Northwestern University his dream job. While at the same time Mary is about to have her book published. So after discussing it with their kids they move to the big city, which is a big change for them and their 12 children, who range from preschool-age twins Kyle and Nigel all the way up to 22-year-old Anne who has already left home. But when Mary is called away to do some promotion work for her recent publication of her long-in-the-works book, life is about to go from chaos to hectic as Tom is left alone with the children while she is in New York promoting her book. Mary feels demands outside the home taking away as much time as Tom's new job does, so the two are forced to try to find new ways of parenting their massive tribe, but they find their parenting styles aren't always completely compatible.

Steve Martin is as funny as he was twenty years ago and given the right roles he can be downright hilarious. This is another movie where he just seems to shine and his quirkiness could not have been more perfect for the movie. This movie is the type of clean, funny humor Hollywood needs more injections of. Sure the movie does stray occasionally with some gross out humor, which happen to be some of the funnier moments of the movie but it only helps the movie and does not distract from it. The producers brought together one of the finest ensembles of young actors in Hollywood to play the children and luckily for the movie and the audience they focused more on the performances of the older actors like Duff, Welling and Perabo as it was obvious some of the younger actors could not act (this was quite evident if you stayed for the outtakes of the movie during the credits). They managed to take a funny premise that was a little weak and turn it into a very good and hilarious movie. The movie turns out numerous moments that will have you rolling in the aisles as the movie easily delivers on all the laughs that its trailers might have enticed you with. It is good to have some really good humor and while the movie does lead to the sappy ever after ending it does not fail to entertain and make you laugh along the way.
3.5 stars out of 5