Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Cheaper By The Dozen 2 DVD - Review of Bonus Features

Cheaper By The Dozen 2 is now out on DVD. The DVD contains both Widescreen and Fullscreen versions, along with a few other bonus features, including:

Casting Session: Interviews with Director Adam Shankman and Casting Director Monica Swann? taking about how certain characters were cast. They talk mostly about the Murtaugh family, since obviously all of the Bakers were already cast.

Camp Chaos: Interviews with the cast and Director about how chaotic the set was. Hilary Duff is in a few of these spots taking about Director Adam Shankman.

A Comedic Trio: Featurette about the trio of Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt, and Eugene Levy.

Director's Commentary: Pretty much standard commentary from the director. Adam Shankman talks about the cast, set, and how different scenes were filmed. Nothing out of the ordinary, and to be honest the commentary was a little boring. I think that commentaries are always better with more than one person, and this proves it, Shankman could have used more people with him. Steve Martin maybe?

Shankman did talk about Hilary and how her schedule was limited because she was on tour during filming. He said that her total time on set was only about 2 weeks, and that she would fly in for one scene, and then fly out right away. They even had a portable set that they took around with them for the scene in the bathroom with Lorraine and Sarah, because they never knew when Hilary would be available to film the scene.

Overall the DVD bonus features are kind of lame. They could have added a lot more interviews and commentary. In the Cheaper By The Dozen 1 DVD there was a commentary with the kids that was actually pretty funny, it would have been cool to see something like that, but I guess we'll have to wait until they put out a special edition DVD 2 or 3 years from now when Cheaper By The Dozen 3 comes out.