Louis Stevens interrupts his older sister Ren's junior high graduation with a remote-controlled beachball meant to be full of confetti, unaware that his sidekick Beans has filled it with spaghetti, which spills on the school's gym teacher Coach Tugnut as the beachball explodes. Meanwhile, Ren breaks up with her boyfriend Gil, so she takes a job babysitting Beans. After Ren and Louis get into a fight and accidentally hurt a stranger named Miles McDermott, he talks the Stevens family and Beans into going on a vacation, which is the set of a new realityTV show called Family Fakeout. It is set on the fictional island of Mandelino, which in reality is only a short distance off the California coast. Louis accidentally destroys the sacred palace the family was meant to spend their vacation in, making the island's natives shun them and forcing them to live on their own. The family separates into two groups pitted against each other. Both groups encounter various situations, such as facing starvation and a "killer squirrel." Ren seeks solace with a native named Mootai and they fall in love. Mootai is actually an actor named Jason who is supposed to romance Ren merely to boost ratings, but he is genuinely interested in her. Louis' best friend Twitty and girlfriend Tawny come to the island to rescue them. Twitty is caught by the show's staff, but he escapes and shuts down the equipment monitoring the Stevens groups. Louis' older brother Donnie finds Tawny, and the newly-reconstituted family comes together and learns the truth. They unite with Twitty and Tawny 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, who tells her the truth, she pushes him off to his apparent death, much to the viewers' and Miles' horror. As Miles breaks down in guilt, a helicopter from another reality show, Gotcha, appears and says that Louis is safe and that the Stevenses had tricked Miles; they planned a charade to get back at him for what he had done to them. Lance LeBow, the host of the TV show, "Gotcha", informs Miles that he is no longer a host of his own show because of his torments. He is then chased away by the Stevens family. Louis tells Ren that as his sister, he loves messing with her, but he would never do anything to hurt her. He then suggests she start a relationship with Jason back on the mainland. Jason comes and apologizes to Ren for stringing her along, but she forgives him and says she understood he was just doing his job as an actor. Jason confesses that when he told her he loved her, he wasn't acting and his feelings were real. After the family returns home and Beans pops up to disrupt their dinner yet again, Ren and Louis argue about who let Beans in the house. The film ends with The Twitty-Stevens Connection singing "Dream Vacation."
The Even Stevens Movie was the most-watched cable program on June 13, 2003, including dominating among kids 6–11 and tweens 9–14, and drawing 5.1 million total viewers.
The Even Stevens Movie was released on DVD and VHS on June 28, 2005 in Region 1 countries. As of November 12, 2019, the film, along with the series, are available to stream on Disney+
