The Pacifier

The Pacifier (Director: Adam Shankman)

Shankman isn't a household name, but his film Bringing Down The House probably ensures that he'll be making more films for awhile. Other films include the Mandy Moore debut A Walk to Remember and the horrid Jennifer Lopez/Matthew McConaughey romantic comedy The Wedding Planner.

The plot is almost exactly the same as last week's Man of the House, featuring Navy SEAL Shane Wolf (Vin Diesel) coming to the home of five raucous kids of many ages to protect them as a matter of national security. The kids don't like it, make themselves a nuisance, and then at some point the "intruder" wins them over and teaches them about life, which helps out in the end when the bad guys show up. The trailer for this film makes it sound like Wolf has no idea why he's been sent to this house--which is false. The entire trailer, in fact, lies like no other trailer has lied before.

At the beginning of the film, Wolf and his SEAL team has rescued a government programmer (Tate Donovan) who has been working on a top-secret assignment, only to see him die. The program lies somewhere within the house, thus necessitating the protection. However, mother Julie (Faith Ford) has to find a security deposit box with an armed Navy escort to find something that will help in the procuring of this program, so that leaves Wolf alone with troublesome kids who've just lost their father. What follows is the usual Disney, kid-flick, poop and fart jokes as Wolf teaches or helps Zoe ("American Dreams" star Brittany Snow), Seth (Max Thieriot), cute-girl Lulu (Morgan York), and two crapping sub-3-year-old tots, while learning life himself. Don't we feel better, now?

Also in the mix is principal of the K-12 school and love interest Claire (Lauren Graham of "Gilmore Girls"), and vice-principal Murney (Brad Garrett of "Everybody Loves Raymond"). Murney's character, in essence a grown-up bully who pesters Seth the whole movie, reminds me that this movie is essentially set up to have episodes that the filmmakers just want to stick in the movie, "it'd be funny if..." type moments that merely serve as a marketing angle for the film. Wolf, as shown in the preview, gives Murney his come-uppance in a one-sided wrestling match. I'm pretty sure that despite the dressings of legitimacy, such a fight would not be allowed to take place on school grounds.

Another head-scratcher: There's another scene where Zoe and Seth slicken the house's stairs so Wolf will fall and hurt himself, a la Home Alone. Wolf misses it, and it upends departing nanny Helga (Carol Kane), who falls down the flight of stairs for comedic purpose--but damn, doesn't anyone know that people could actually break their neck falling down stairs like that? I guess there's no sense of responsibility in showing millions of kids this, ahem, funny prank.

Okay, maybe, you say, I'm being a crotchety old sourpuss when it comes to stuff like this, but it just doesn't make sense to me, and it is offensive (in specifics, a family-friendly flick with no awareness). There's not much to say for a film that simply aims to please its family audience, but I will take it to task for these types of scenarios--and the movie is a little more violent than your usual PG-rated fare (which this is). I also found myself wondering what this film might have been like had it been in the hands of say, David Zucker (The Naked Gun, et al). There are some moments in this movie that could have been heightened madcap fun--but it wouldn't have garnered the family-friendly rating.

Another thing to pick on: Seth's big moment in the film is that he's secretly acting in a local troupe's version of The Sound of Music. I know that he's just a kid, but geez...Thieriot's performance in the musical-within-the-film is downright awful. It's hard to believe that his character has undergone some vast transformation when you listen to him sing "Sixteen Going on Seventeen."

So there. Families will likely find this oh-so-charming, that is until their five-year-old decides to oil down the stairs and watch people hilariously fall down. They'll also find the already worn-out (even just from this year's crop of kid films) bodily function jokes fantastic. It also teaches that when life gets you down, learn how to fight. It's the only way. Like I said, in another, adult-oriented flick, this might have been OK--not in this one.