Pace Press

Issue date: 3/16/05 Section: Arts & Entertainment

Media Credit: Walt Disney Vin Diesel plays daddy in Disney´s The Pacifier

Most of us know him as the tough, muscular bad ass that starred in movies such as The Fast and the Furious and The Chronicles of Riddick. But this time, Vin Diesel comes back to star in the PG-rated Walt Disney comedy, The Pacifier, as Shane Wolfe, a Navy Seal whose newest mission is to provide protection to five children whose father, the creator of an important computer chip, has been killed.

The film opens with Diesel commanding fellow Navy Seals on a mission at sea that was so out of touch with reality it made me cringe. The explosions and crashes and the flips and kicks, along with the dramatic instrumental background music, were unnecessary and really seemed like Disney's failed attempt at an action movie.

Diesel, in this unfamiliar role as baby-sitter in a suburban home, is out of place from beginning to end. The children he must care for include: spoiled teen Zoe Plummer (Brittany Snow) whose mere presence is annoying, depressed 14-year-old Seth (Max Thieriot), quirky 8-year-old Lulu (Morgan York), toddler Peter and Baby Tyler.

The cast has cliché written all over it, but then again what can you expect from a Disney production? The Pacifier, directed by Adam Shankman, has a predictable plot, typical pranks and a load of cheap laughs that give audiences absolutely no intellectual credit and lack any inkling of originality, or creativity for that matter.

The Pacifier (91 minutes) moved along nicely and had all the right elements: comedy, romance and mystery. However, the weak performance by most of the actors obfuscated these aspects, and it was difficult for one to get past the bad acting and into the movie. While watching Diesel change a baby's diaper is priceless and thoroughly amusing, the fact that he seems so out of his element is probably the only thing on the screen that jumps out at you so fervently and repeatedly... Well, that and his bad acting, of course.

The audience has the pleasure of witnessing other known actors, such as Lauren Graham who plays Lorelai Gilmore in the hit WB series Gilmore Girls and Brad Garrett, who we all know as the older brother of Ray Barone in the hit CBS series Everybody Loves Raymond. Although these two actors proved to be tolerable, they were nonetheless drowned out by the excess of other bad acting seen throughout the film

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