Mariés, huit enfants

I thought the movie "I Do They Don't" was fantastic. In the past I've watched Rob Estes on "Suddenly Susan" & "Melrose Place" and also Josie Bissett on "Melrose Place" and loved seeing them together again in "I Do They Don't". They have great chemistry together (I guess being married in real life helps that!) - in the movie they are both widowed with children and careers and they fall in love and try blend their already busy chaotic families together without dropping the ball. Of course they stumble, but they keep it together which is what working and raising a family is all about. So many people have been talking about this movie - all good! - and the movie left us wanting more. This would make a great series - appealing to many ages! - it would be so nice to see a real life, down to earth, family show like this that portrays the reality of so many of our lives today - instead of the so called "Reality TV" that all the stations are overwhelming us with these days. Someone tell the people at ABC Family they have the start of a new series here!

I usually comment only on movies that I like, figuring "everyone to his/her own taste," but here I want to make an exception. The premise of this movie, which somehow seems to get lost in the shuffle, is that these two self-centered adults have a perfect right to go off to Las Vegas, get drunk, get married, and inflict incalculable suffering upon their respective broods of children. Even allowing for the culturally sanctioned inebriation, they have neither the courage nor the sense of responsibility to wake up the next morning and undo what they have set in motion. After all, "love" is all that's important, isn't it? To hell with everybody else. Whether or not things "work out in the end" is really not the point; in fact it's quite irrelevant. The point is that disrespect for others, especially if they are young persons, and especially if they are in a position of dependency, is made light of and thereby reinforced by this movie. There are far more innocuous behaviors these "parents" could have performed that would have brought down an army of social workers on their heads in a heartbeat.

with this ABC family attempt of the hit blockbuster "cheaper by the dozen" comes an obnoxious amount of corny dialogue, shallow plot lines, and cheesy comebacks. With about two good actors among many wanna-be's, this movie was a major disappointment. Its a Hollywood-wannabe ditto of an already bad plot. Then, because they needed a lot of actors, that meant that they'd probably be more lenient. So the acting wasn't five-star. The plot moved fairly fast, and the twists were bad and had horrible timing. The junction of characters and the "end relationships" were also too mushy and clichéd for me. Spare yourself and rent something better.

While nobody will ever confuse this movie with Citizen Kane, it is not a total waste of two hours. This is a typical "his kids vs. her kids" movie, except unlike the Brady Bunch, it tries to deal with some modern issues facing blended families, like when the father's second-oldest son and the mother's oldest daughter are discovered kissing on the patio. At least, being on the ABC Family Channel, this situation is not handled as crudely as it might have been on a different channel. The closest this movie comes to being risqué is at the beginning of the movie, when the mom wakes up to find her youngest daughter sleeping on the pillow next to her and asks "Where did you come from?" "Your uterus," replies the tot.

This so-so family movie is a fairly innocuous effort in a fairly standard mode -- a couple gets married on drunken impulse in Las Vegas, and their kids don't like it. Will love -- or a soundtrack of an Elvis impersonator singing "Viva Las Vegas" -- rule the day, or will family pressure ruin everything?

The hook for this movie is that the leads -- Josie Bissett and Rob Estes are married, and they are a cute-looking couple. Most of the worthwhile jokes are in the camera work by Michael Storey and editing by Drake Silliman. This being 2005, we have modern liberation: she is a minor celebrity, a cookie magnate. He likes to wear hats and sing karaoke versions of "Fever" -- Peggy Lee needn't worry.

If you never see this episodic movie, you probably won't have to explain why you missed it, but there's a lot worse crud out there.