The Pacifier
2005; directed by Adam Shankman

You might be asking yourself why the hell there's a review of a PG-rated Disney movie starring Vin Diesel up on this site. Well, the stunts and fights were directed by Brad Allan, who is fairly notable for being the first non-Asian to join Jackie Chan's world-renowned stunt team. Even though there's not a ton of action featured here, what's presented is done well. And the rest of the movie -- given that it's a fairly dopey "family" film -- isn't all that bad, either.

In the movie, our boy Vin plays a Navy SEAL named Shane Wolfe (groan), who botches a mission to protect an important scientist. Shane is then given the task of protecting the scientist's family, while trying to find the secret weapons program he was working on. Of course, Shane knows nothing about kids, but eventually becomes one of the family, and manges to save the world in the process.

As you can probably guess, The Pacifier is pretty cliched stuff all the way through, right down to the use of a musical montage while Shane learns to become a daddy. But the script, which was penned by Reno 911's Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, doesn't induce headaches like your usual kiddie fare, and there are a few genuinely funny moments, mostly propelled by roles from various comedians like Scott Thompson and Brad Garrett.

Action-wise, this isn't going to blow you away, but there are a couple of solid sequences, such as one where Shane fights off some attackers in a toy-filled room. The heavy use of props is definitely reminiscent of something out of a Jackie Chan movie, which was probably totally intentional, and not a bad thing in the long run.

Overall, The Pacifier isn't a great film by any stretch of the imagination, and your certainly not going to win any geek cred for having it in your DVD collection. But if you're looking for something to keep the wee ones in the house amused that won't make you want to punch yourself in the head, you could do a whole lot worse than this. At the least, you won't have to put up with the High School Musical level of hell with plastic-looking kids singing terrible pop songs.

RATING: 5