Plot
The Baker family begins to undergo many changes, beginning with Lorraine (Hilary Duff) and her desire to study in New York. Their oldest daughter Nora (Piper Perabo) is now married to Bud McNulty (Jonathan Bennett) and heavily pregnant, but the couple intend to move to Houston because of Bud's new job promotion.
Feeling that the family is breaking apart as the children grow up and move away, Tom (Steve Martin) persuades the entire family to take one last family vacation all together at Lake Winnetka. Tom's old rival Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy) and his large family (with "only" eight kids) are also there for the summer. Jimmy constantly flaunts his wealth and success to Tom, as well of the accomplishments of his children, often suggesting to Tom that the Baker children are less successful because of Tom's parenting style. The Baker kids get into many accidents, many of which are accidental. Some examples are short scenes, such as the scene where Mark Baker (Forrest Landis), along with Kenny Murtaugh, crash into a tennis court with a golf cart and ruin the court, Sarah Baker (Alyson Stoner) stealing merchandise from a gift shop, and Mark Baker accidentally setting a backpack of fireworks on fire, causing widespread panic, especially when the backpack of fireworks is thrown into a boat, igniting the boat's engine and causing it to explode.
Jimmy again starts the topic that Tom needs to use a firmer hand on his kids. Tom is angered by this and they decide to settle the matter using the Annual Family Cup. Tom trains the kids for days, not realizing that they are miserable. Soon Sarah and Elliot Murtaugh (Taylor Lautner) go on a date at a Movie theater watching Ice Age, where they are spied on by their fathers, leading an argument between the two and humiliating their children. Sarah is furious and refuses to compete for her father in the "stupid cup!" while Elliott rebels against his father and continues to spend time with Sarah.
Everyone, including Kate, is angry with Tom; for not only spying on Sarah, but for also ruining the entire trip by his competitiveness with the Murtaugh family. Tom goes to the Annual Family Games to compete for the cup with Nigel and Kyle (the only two who are willing to go while the others abandon Tom). Kate and the rest of the family soon show up, showing that they forgive Tom and are willing to compete for the cup. Unfortunately, the Murtaughs and the Bakers are both tied. In order to choose who win and who is 2nd place, every member from each family must work together and compete against the opposing family in a canoe race. During the canoe race, Nora's water breaks. So the Bakers and the Murtaughs work together to get Nora to the hospital as she goes into labor. While Bud, Lorraine and Kate go with Nora in the emergency room, Tom, Jimmy and the rest of the kids wait in the waiting room. While talking to Jimmy, Tom realizes that he has to let his kids grow, but wherever they go, they will always be with him; and he will always be with them. Then Bud tells Tom that he now owns the "The Big House." (The house that the Bakers are renting already) Nora then gives birth to a baby boy whom they name Tom in honor of her father, who has shown them "there is no way to be a perfect parent, but a million ways to be a really good one."
The movie ends with the Murtaughs and the Bakers having a barbecue at their cottage. While Tom and Kate are dancing on the end of the boardwalk, it breaks loose from the dock and begins to float away, but the two ignore it and continue dancing while the credits roll.
Read more about this topic: Cheaper By The Dozen 2
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
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“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)