Steve Martin’s tiresome follow-up to his 2003 hit about a family with 12 children is innocuous enough, its heart in the right spot even if it did misplace its brain.

This installment plays like a toned-down retread of one of the “National Lampoon’s Vacation” movies as the Baker parents (Martin and Bonnie Hunt) take their family of 12 children on a lakeside summer fling, where dad falls into his old competitive ways with a longtime rival (Eugene Levy) who has eight kids.

The entire clan of Baker kids is back, led by Hilary Duff, Tom Welling and Piper Perabo, each with their own lame little subplot.

PG for some crude humor and mild language. 94 min. One and a half stars out of four.

– David Germain,

AP Movie Writer
“Fun With Dick & Jane”

Like “Assault on Precinct 13,” “The Longest Yard,” “Yours, Mine and Ours” and a slew of other remakes this year of movies from the 1960s and ‘70s, this effort confuses speed and volume with innovation.

The idea of having Jim Carrey and Tea Leoni go on an armed robbery spree – as George Segal and Jane Fonda did in the 1977 original – is funny enough without amping up their antics with quick edits, broad sight gags and loud, peppy music. As in the original, they’re forced to look for work when Dick’s company lays him off, but find that a life of crime is a more lucrative way to support their son and maintain their comfy suburban lifestyle.

PG-13 for brief language, some sexual humor and occasional humorous drug references. 87 min. Two stars out of four.

– Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
“The Ringer”

The idea alone is enough to make you cringe: Johnny Knoxville stars as an average guy who pretends he’s mentally challenged in order to rig the Special Olympics. Hunched over to one side and slightly contorted, referring to himself in the third person by the simpleton pseudonym “Jeffy,” he insinuates himself among the athletes who truly have physical and intellectual disabilities with the hopes of winning the thousands of dollars he owes.

It could have been painful to watch in its political incorrectness or, conversely, an insufferably feel-good life lesson. It’s actually surprisingly funny – often laugh-out-loud hilarious – and yes, inspirational, mostly without trying too hard to be.

Produced by the Farrelly brothers and written by Ricky Blitt from “The Family Guy,” the film features actual Special Olympians as well as actors playing such athletes in scenes that buzz with the most unexpected comic energy.

PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and some drug references. 93 min. Two and a half stars out of four.

– Christy Lemire, AP Movie Critic
“Rumor Has It”

There are a couple of classic caveats about Hollywood: Never put your own money into a movie and avoid working with animals or children. Here’s another: Do not draw comparisons between your run-of-the-mill movie and a great one. That’s the built-in problem with the latest movie in Rob Reiner’s slow slide toward oblivion, “Rumor Has It,” starring Jennifer Aniston as a woman who learns her messed-up family may have been the inspiration for the book and movie “The Graduate.”

At first glance, it sounds like a potentially cute idea, and perhaps with some wit, energy and bite to it, the story could have been a blackly comic successor to Mike Nichols’ 1967 masterpiece. But “Rumor Has It” does not even rise to the level of trivially pleasant romantic comedy. The movie just sits there, lumbering along with nothing to offer but occasionally caustic sparks provided by Shirley MacLaine as the supposed source of Anne Bancroft’s Mrs. Robinson. There are few laughs and little drama to the movie, whose inclusion of the famous seduction scene between Bancroft and Dustin Hoffman and some verses of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” only emphasize what a dreary, artificial affair Reiner and screenwriter T.M. Griffin have concocted.

PG-13 for mature thematic material, sexual content, crude humor and a drug reference. 97 minutes. One and a half stars out of four.

– David Germain, AP Movie Writer