The Even Stevens Movie - Plot

Plot

After the graduation had been disrupted by Louis and Beans and Ren dumping her clueless boyfriend, the Stevens family and Beans are tricked into going on a "vacation" which turns out to be the set of a new reality tv show called "Family Fake Out", which all of their hometown friends and other locals are watching back in Sacramento. It is set on the fictional island of Mandelino, which, however exotic the producers make it up to be, is really only a short distance off the California coast.

When they first arrive on the island via Beaver floatplane, Louis is tricked into destroying the house they were meant to live in, thus making the island's "natives" (who are really actors for Family Fake Out) shun them and forcing the Stevens to live on their own. The family eventually separates into two groups pitted against each other. Both groups encounter various situations, such as facing starvation, encountering a "killer squirrel," and so on. Ren, during all this chaos, seeks solace with one of the "natives," Mootai, and they start to fall in love with each other; although the "native" is really an actor named Jason who is supposed to fall in love with her in order to boost ratings for the show, Jason realizes that he truly loves Ren.

Eventually, Louis' friends Twitty and Tawny make their way to the island, to rescue the Stevens and (in Twitty's case) to make up for betraying them, as he was the one who sold the family out to the show. Twitty is caught by the Family Fake-Out staff though he manages to escape and shuts down the equipment monitoring the Stevens' groups. Meanwhile, Donnie (the oldest Stevens' son) finds Tawny (although suffering from a little bit of amnesia, from getting hit on the head by a coconut upon her arrival), and the newly-reconstituted family finally comes together and learns the truth. They unite with Twitty to stop Ren from killing Louis, because she believes he sold her and her new boyfriend out after being told by one of the island's "natives". Ren corners him on a cliff, and despite the protests of the family and Miles McDermot, the show's host who tells her the truth and the person who earlier set the family up, she pushes him off to his apparent death, much to the viewers' and Miles' shock.

As Miles breaks down in guilt, a Bell 206 helicopter from another reality show called "Gotcha" (a show that Miles was the producer for before he was fired) appears and reveals that Louis is safe and that the Stevens family had tricked Miles - Louis had caught a ladder that was attached to the helicopter, the family had secretly worked with "Gotcha" earlier on, and they played along with "Family Fake Out" just for drama.

Later the family returns home and Ren, following Louis' advice, starts dating the actor who played the part of the boy she'd liked on the island. The film concludes with a voiceover by Beans explaining what happened to everyone afterwards, (i.e. Donnie attending college, Steve returning to work, and Ren starting a new relationship with Jason) as he pops up at the Stevens' dinner to disrupt it yet again.