I missed the first installment of the Steve Martin version of Cheaper By the Dozen. Give me some time to get thoroughly briefed on the thematic elements of the original, which must have triggered an incessant drumbeat of demand for a sequel.

Football coach, author wife, their 12 kids and the resultant chaos. OK, think I'm good.

Cheaper By the Dozen 2 picks up the Baker clan at the high school graduation of Lorraine, played by Hilary Duff. Big fans of the teen icon may be disappointed. Her character is nowhere near the center of the plot. With this many adorable moppets in the cast, screen time is dispensed via Cuisinart.

Lorraine is heading to New York for a magazine internship, older sister Nora (Piper Perabo) is married, pregnant (in this family, what else?) and heading to Houston with her husband. Dad (Martin) and Mom (Bonnie Hunt) seem sad to see their family starting to flee the nest, regardless of the elbow room and bathroom time that will open up.

"Life's blazing by. Let's go up to the lake one more time," says Dad, before deploying the troops to an aging house on Lake Winnetka for Labor Day weekend.

Alas, their rustic getaway has been taken upscale by Jimmy Murtaugh (Eugene Levy), Dad's childhood nemesis who grew up to be the kind of rub-your-nose-in-it rich guy everybody avoids at the class reunion.

Jimmy's eight children - must be something in the water up there - are disciplined where the Bakers are fun-centric. A campfire singalong turns into competitive sport, and when the epic battle for the Labor Day Cup unfolds it's as if the Bad News Bears had called out Team Nike.

Trouble is, the kids all like each other and it's only the dads who have pinned their pride on the three-legged race and egg toss.

Martin tries simultaneously to pump enthusiasm into his kids and life into this movie. Every time he plays one of these roles it's a reminder of how terrific he was as a dad in Parenthood and how each time he runs one of these befuddled family guy roles through the movie copier, the image gets paler.

Levy pumps up the conflict but is asked to paint only in very broad strokes. Hunt has almost nothing of substance to do, but does it well. Carmen Electra is surprisingly appealing as Levy's third wife, a trophy with a heart. Few of the kids make an impact, save Alyson Stoner, who sweetly and subtly navigates First Crush terrain.

Cheaper By the Dozen 2 seems to want to say something about how children should be raised, but this is scarcely the right platform.

If you've seen the preview, you've seen most of the funny stuff: Martin's pratfalls, the kids' pranks. Few are imaginatively staged or shot but they likely will amuse the children.

And, really, that's why we're here. Parents can take the kids for a family movie night out or plop them into a multiplex auditorium for 90 minutes of harmless, child-centric fluff while the grown-ups skip out for last minute shopping or, next week, make hopeful exchanges.

Cheaper By the Dozen 2 dishes sweetness and sentimentality in holiday-sized portions. It has its heart in the right place. Too bad it only fitfully locates its funny bone.

wolfm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-5226