REVIEW: Hostage

WARNING: This review will be kept as spoiler-free as possible, but proceed with caution nontheless.

"Hostage" is being billed as a gritty action/thriller, and that it is but also much more. Fueled by an international (and inter-media) criss-crossing of talent that finds quintessential American everyman-hero Bruce Willis occupying a movie world set in a "California" more reminiscient of recent French suspense thrillers and frequently drenched in bold, over-the-top style of Italian "giallo" shockers. It feels as though birthed from a kind of primordial melting-pot into which the alternate cinematic streams of the Slasher, Home-Invasion, Cop, Crime-Thriller, Seige and Action genres have all been diverted; joining the growing ranks of films that are not content to live within the limitations of a single style or category.

It's also the best new movie of 2005 thus far, setting a VERY high bar for the rest of the year's action/thrillers to follow. You owe it to yourself to go see this movie as soon as possible, knowing about it as little as possible.

Willis, once again proving himself one of the most naturalistic and thus terminally underrapreciated actors in America, here is Jeff Talley; a one-time "legendary" FBI hostage negotiator fallen from grace and putting his life back together as police chief of a tiny California county. On a day like any other, a pair of ne'er-d0-well teenaged brothers and their possibly-psychotic hoodlum friend "Mars" attempt the robbery of a high-security mansion inhabited by an accountant (Kevin Pollack) and his two children. Things go about as badly as they can, and they're soon to go worse: Without giving anything away, it will become apparent that the house's security system is touchier than one might guess, that there's more going on in the house than it seems, that the father's clientel is far more than it seems and that Mars is, unfortunately for those locked inside with him, exactly what he seems. Outside the house, not only Talley's local cops but also the FBI and some unseen, shadowy figures who have motives entirely their own are working to get in. Everyone has an agenda that puts everyone else in danger, eventually even Talley himself.

It would have been easy for "Hostage," with so many differing styles and story-points competing for attention, to turn into a giant mess; but it holds up not only well but spectacularly well, and credit for this has to go to newcomer director Florent Siri. Siri is a newcomer, who's only prior film of note was an actioner called "The Nest." He's done the majority of his work as a director of video games, namely the two most-recent Tom Clancy "Splinter Cell" titles. I'm not positive if this makes Siri the first game-director to cross over into mainstream filmmaking, but I certainly can't think of many others. In a way it makes perfect sense, as the experience of having to "direct" the action of a multi-story, multi-linear, player-maleable interactive game must have made a difference in how expertly he handles the criss-crossing stories and stylistic leaps of his film: If Siri lands a hit with this film, and I believe he may, expect to hear a lot of buzz in the coming months about video game directors being "the new music video directors."

Always overlooked even in his own better films, Bruce Willis is as good here as he's been in a long time. The effortlessness with which he seems to inhabit action movie worlds, even one so penetrated by other genres as this one, often leads to his being written off as just another action hero. But it takes an enormous talent to remain grounded and "real" in as many different worlds as Willis' heroes frequently find themselves, and here his presence serves a similar function to his presence in "The Fifth Element": He's the anchor, the one who keeps the movie from flying off into deep space on it's various genre-tangents. Over-the-top and stylized as it may be, "Hostage" constantly seems to exist in a real world of real consequence largely because it's impossible to believe that Willis-as-Talley would be there otherwise.

There is absolutely nothing "wrong" with this film, it's as solid and excellent as a mid-scale action/thriller can be, and it wrings 110% of the possible potential from everyone involved. This is the best new movie playing in theaters right now, and it's definately worth your time and your money. Highly reccomended.

FINAL RATING: 10/10

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REVIEW: Robots

For decades, Walt Disney was the only company "allowed" to release animated movies. As the medium's creator, they were viewed as synonymous with their creation, and with such a fusion imbedded in people's mind's the very idea of a "Disney movie" not made BY Disney was, well... wrong, somehow. So it is now with Pixar and 3D Computer Animated films: This is seen as "the Pixar genre," and no matter how many "Shrek" sequels roll by "the Pixar genre" it shall remain for a long time. The question is, somewhat, complicated by the fact that none of the non-Pixar entries in the genre have been even close to equalling Pixar's product, but there you have it. Basically, ever film of this style will be compared to Pixar's work, and come up looking short about 99% of the time. Yes, even "Shrek."

So now comes "Robots," made in earnest and with a lot of obvious effort behind it, and it's almost sad to have to report that it's... just not Pixar, and more than that just not very good. A lot of good ideas and visuals are in it, and it's obvious a good deal of the people working on it were working their bums off, but there's just not much of a movie here. It's story is too light, it's characters are all concept but internally hollow. It's predictable, it's unmemorable... it just doesn't fit together right. It's a step-down for Chris Wedge, who's previous entry "Ice Age" was a small wonder of family storytelling.

Set in an entirely-mechanized world populated by entirely mechanized beings, (all of which look like they were much more fun to design than they are to watch,) "Robots" follows Rodney Copperbottom (Ewan McGregor,) a teenaged robot who's dream since the day his parents assembled him has been to leave tiny Rivet Town for sprawling Robot City to show his inventing skills to Big Weld (Mel Brooks,) the billionaire robot-industrialist who apparently manufactures and maintains the entire world of the film and all of it's inhabitants. Rodney discovers on-arrival that Big Weld's company has been usurped by the unctuous Ratchet (Greg Kinear,) a profit-oriented business-bot who's tilting the company away from the manufacture of endless spare-parts for all models of robots to the exclusive selling of upgrades. (slogan: "Why be you when you can be NEW!?") That this will force outmoded bots who can't afford or don't desire upgrades to be scrapped in the underground recycling furance that serves as a Robot City version of Hell is all part of the plan, masterminded by Ratchet's mother Madame Gasket, who's more or less a kind of Robot Devil (that this would, I guess, make Ratchet the Robot Antichrist is not really explored.) Teamed up with misfit rabble-rouser Fender (Robin Williams,) Rodney becomes a street-level Messiah for his ability to repair the parts-less, rapidly-deteriorating population.

It's all meant for fun and a solid message of be-yourself-ness, (and there seems to be a hint of rival-studio-satire with Ratchet as Michael Eisner to Big Weld's Walt Disney,) but it all just sort of hangs there. For all his backstory and oh-so-human-except-not pathos (his parents are poor and his very body is all a succession of family hand me downs) Rodney just isn't a very interesting character, and while there's the outline of a Hero's Journey going on it's hard to care. Ratchet and Madame Gasket are weak villains, largely undefined and only intermitently menacing: For all the effort, the film's central plot can't shake the issue that almost all of it's gags were done better as half-hour episodes of "Futurama" several years ago. Roles given to name stars, like Halle Berry as a love interest for Rodney, are largely lifeless while most of the really fun, interesting characters (like Brooks as Big Weld) don't get enough screentime. Only Robin Williams comes off looking good, surprisingly investing Fender with an edge that is delightfully not just his "Genie" routine warmed over.

If you've got kids, you're probably going to see this no matter what sooner or later. The best I can offer you in terms of hope is that Williams is funny, some of the "chase" sequences are interestingly designed and that the film is short. Beyond that, "Robots" just doesn't have much to offer. Pity.

FINAL RATING: 3/10

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Four Questions for supporters of "The Passion"

I'll be seeing and reviewing the new "Passion Recut" sometime this weekend, as soon as I see it. As a warmup for what I'm positive will be a genial and pleasant exchange with readers amd fellow bloggers across the web, devoid entirely of anger, namecalling, people accusing other people of being "paranoid" and use of the term "secularist" as a put-down (thanks, Bill O'Reilly,) I was considering posting my old pre-blog review of the original-release version of "Passion." Finding it, however, too be a bit on the long side, I've decided instead to post this and hope that maybe some "Passion" fans can enlighten me:

What follows are five detailed questions pertaining to aspects of the film, it's content, it's popularity and it's controversy that I'm still having a bit of a problem wrapping my head around. Usually, whenever I bring these up I'm either accused of trying to incite anti-Christian bias or told that I "just don't get it." Very well, help me get it. Let's all pretend for a minute that we're still living in the Age of Reason and have an exchange over this instead of calling names. I'm serious. If you're a fan of "The Passion," give me an answer to some or all of these questions, I'm genuinely curious to hear from you:

WHY is "The Passion's" endless, ultra-explicit violence acceptible for children but the similar violence of other films is not?
I realize that not every Christian parent thought it necessary to subject their kid to this film, and if you're one of them, please excuse yourself from this question. Those who DID, though... seriously, explain this to me. Down the line, Christian leaders are always at the forefront of trying to censor and remove extremem violence from films, but on this one most were largely silent? Why? Why were the same "family movie reviewers" who've been telling me for years that every violent film "could have stood to be less explicit" now telling me that "Passion's" highly-fetishized ultraviolence is 100% necessary to "understanding" the message. Does this mean that violence is okay for children so long as it's pushing a Religious message? If so, can I now show "The Exorcist" (a totally in-line pro-Christian anti-Satanic film) to an audience of preschoolers if I so choose to? Just asking...

WHY does the use of "extrabiblical" material here not upset those who were furious about "The Last Temptation of Christ?"
The constant line I hear again and again about "Passion" is that it's wrong to criticize it's storytelling because "it's taken directly from The Gospels." But the thing is, it's not. Nowhere in any of the "accepted" four Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John,) do I recall the presence of Satan in the Garden of Gethsemane, as we see in the film. Nor is there any mention of the Sanhedrin soldiers throwing Christ off a bridge en-route to the judgement of Caipphas. Nor does any accepted Gospel describe Judas being assaulted by an "Evil Dead"-like ghoul under said bridge, or being hounded into suicide by an army of goblin-faced toddlers unleashed by Lucifer. Not even in the quirky-details-laden Gospel of Luke will you find any tale of Jesus inventing Tall Tables. Out of four Gospels, only one describes a pre-crucifixtion flaying even remotely approaching the horror show in Gibson's film, and at least one seems devoid of pre-execution torture entirely; and NONE of them say anything about Satan slithering around among the Temple Elders (there's not even much Gospel evidence for the presence of the Elders themselves at the actual scourging) to show off a Chucky-like demon baby. The film also presents Mary Magdalene and the rescued-prostitute to be the same character, and while thats a mistake most adaptations make it's still a mistake.

Now, I'm not questioning Gibson's right to artistic invention in the film, I'm merely asking for fairness: Gibson has PACKED his film with cinematic invention, coded references to pre-Vatican II Catholic imagery and documents (particularly "The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ," a 19th Century record of Sister Mary Catherine Emmerich's fever-dream induced visions of the crucifixtion, now regarded as discredited by the Mother Church, from whence the "bridge-drop" scene is taken) but he maintains that his film is "based on the Gospels" and his defenders repeat it as, well, gospel. But Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation of Christ" contains a approximate amount of Biblical contradiction (actually less so, since in that film the Biblical-inconsistencies are eventually revealed to be a dream of Christ's) and continues to be savaged by Christian film critics for these "blasphemies." All I want is clarification, folks.

WHY have Protestants and other non-Catholic Christians embraced the film when it's presentation of Christianity is so explicity Catholic?
There are certain things about Catholicism that most Protestant sects (Lutheranism and Methodism in particular, if I recall) are supposed to regard as, at best, heresy. Chief among these are the veneration of the Virgin Mary (believed to have been based on co-opted paganistic earth-goddess imagery rather than any scriptural basis and thus rejected by Martin Luther's "back-to-basics" movement) and the "Stations of The Cross," (a Catholic traditional of ritual-theater involving instances with little or no scriptural basis,) both of which are present and soundly accounted-for in "The Passion." Gibson even places Mary and Jesus posed in a "pieta," a scene popularized in Renaissance art but appearing nowhere in scripture.

Again, it's Gibson's right to make an expressly Catholic version of the story, but then why was the film so heavily supported by the predominantly-Potestant "evangelical" movement when so much of it's content is regarded by many Protestant faiths as, at best, a corruption of scripture fundamentals? If the answer is, "we wanted to show support for a Christian film, even if it's a vision of Christianity we don't 100% agree with," then fine, I can accept that. But, if so, does that not make the success of the film less the story of a film-appreciation movement or even a religious movement and more the story of a political point-scoring movement?

And, finally...

WHAT is a non-believer, a skeptic, follower of another faith or just anyone not intimately-familiar with the material supposed to get out of this film?
The crucifixtion is the climax to, it is said, "the greatest story ever told." It's supposed to be the hammering, drive-the-point-home trump card to the story of a man's life considered so profound that if introduced to it by a convincing enough evangelist one is intended to fall to their knees, humbled by the sudden realization that the man described is the Son of God himself. Evangelism, the winning of converts and new believers, is the key mission of Christians individually and Christianity itself. The reason the term "preaching to the choir" is supposed to be such a condemndation is because it's exactly what Christianity is NEVER supposed to do: The faith is, above all else, meant to be accesible and open to ALL who would hear the Truth. Above all else, the evangelist mission of their faith forbids Christians from keeping Christ to themselves, treating The Word as something that is only to be heard and appreciated by those who are already "in the club."

But this is exactly what "The Passion" does. It treats Jesus and His story as a speciality item, a niche-market curiosity to be appreciated and enjoyed only by those who already "get it." The miracles He performed? We see none of them. The message He spread? We hear a tiny bit of the Sermon on The Mount. For two hours plus, we see an actor dressed as Christ being flayed alive, and not once does the film remind us why he's doing it. Redeeming the sins of mankind? You'll only know it if you've already accepted that going in, otherwise we're treated to a film that is essentially two hours of simulated sadomasochistic torture-pornography, leaving us with the notion that He is to be worshiped... why, exactly? Because he could take a punch well? What's supposed to be the most moving tale of personal sacrifice in the entirety of human history is reduced to a simplistic action-movie cliche: The hero we side with on the sole basis of his ability to endure pain and seemingly beg for more. By the logic of "The Passion," the criteria for Lamb-of-God-hood should make Uma Thurman's "The Bride" from "Kill Bill," Jet Li's "Nameless" from "Hero" and every action hero Mel Gibson has ever played equally-qualified for the role of Savior; and with no disrespect to those fine characters I think Christ perhaps deserves slightly better company.

There's a basic rule of storytelling and filmmaking at work here, folks: You can't rely on visceral "ooh! That looks like it hurts!" gut-reaction pity to inspire pity and connection from the audience; you need to give them a reason to care or at least a character worth caring about. Taken on it's own, as a work of filmmaking, "Passion" fails to do these things: From where I'm standing, this is a cheap shock-show for makeup-FX torture, not some kind of transcendant religious experience unless you're already "on the bus," in which case it's simply missing the point.

So there they are, my four BIG issues with "Passion" in question form. If you've got answers, I'm waiting to hear them.

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Our Freedom: Under attack from ALL sides

Those of you who beleive that the insidious efforts to increase censorship of art, film, television and radio by the government are solely the efforts of "conservatives" or the Religious "right" need to wake up. Censors come in all political stripes, and we forget that at our mutual peril.

Case in point: Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton. The likely-frontrunner for the 2008 Democratic Presidential nomination has come out HARD as a pro-censorship advocate:
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--clinton-mediaviol0309mar09,0,1268343.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Money quote: "the senator argued the public health was threatened by increasingly raw media content."

...

Give me a moment on this one.

......

THE PUBLIC HEALTH!!??

Again, never ever forget this one simple fact: There has never ever been a single shred of hard evidence to support the idea that any creation of art or media has ever or will ever exist that is automatically-detrimental to health or well-being. There's no movie that will ALWAYS "make" kids shoot up a school, no metal song that will ALWAYS "make" you slit your wrists, etc. THESE THINGS ARE MYTHOLOGY. THEY DO NOT EXIST.

Ahem.

Here's another: "As First Lady, Clinton pushed for better controls over what children see through the so-called V-chip law, which made it easier for parents keep inappropriate television shows away from young eyes. The problem has gotten more complicated since then, she argued, due to the easy availability of salacious Internet sites, hard-edged video games, and all the other electronic devices now available to children. "

Getting the idea of what's going on here? Clinton knows that she's considered too "far left," and that to win the presidency which she desires so greatly she's looking to move "to the right" on an issue to make herself more palatable to moderates and, especially, religiously-minded voters. Calling for increased censorship and decrying media sex and violence has across the board appeal to enemies of personal freedom on both sides of the aisle: The religious far-right likes it because they regard the post-sexual-revolution media age as "sinful," and the far-left likes it because to "police" the culture would require an large government beaurocracy and greater federal control of what people are allowed to see and here.

When it comes to beating back and ultimately defeating censorship, you can't trust conservatives OR liberals.

"Clinton and fellow senators Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., and Rick Santorum, R-Penn., want the government to closely study the impact of media on the development of young children."

Take a look at that list: Lieberman is the most prominent pro-censorship politician in America, the former running mate of Al Gore, husband of censor-crazed lionheart Tipper Gore. Santorum is a gay-bashing, virulently "traditionalist" right-wing stalwart. The efforts to control what we're allowed to see and say cross all party lines and all boundaries.

Mark my words on this: Support for increased censorship of TV and film will be one of Sen. Clinton's MAJOR campaign issues, as it's the one thing she supports that moderates and conservatives can get behind.

So yes, fear and beware the Religious Right when it comes to censorship and the first ammendment, but fear ALSO the Big Government Left.

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"Narnia" is "The Passion' for kids?" Um, how about NO?

Thinking-caps on, folks.

If you troll for film gossip at all, or if your a fan of classic literature, or both; you're no doubt aware that among the big holiday releases this year will be a big-budget Disney-funded adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The With & The Wardrobe." And if you've been following news about that then you probably have heard THIS making the rounds on the web:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/03/06/wnarn06.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/03/06/ixworld.html

Titled: "Disney sets out to make 'The Passion' for kids," the article is one of many expressing surprise at Disney's until-recent under-the-radar courting of religious-oriented public relations firms, specifically "Motive Marketing," to help them target Christian audiences for the film in hopes of grabbing some Mel Gibson-style "I never go to movies but I'll go to this" moolah. Now, described in those terms, one can see why people would be worried: With "Passion," we already have ONE regressive-fundamentalist propaganda film in theaters, and we certainly don't need another to say nothing of one aimed at children.

But that's not what's going on here, thats not what Disney is making, thats not what "Narnia" is all about nor was it what C.S. Lewis was all about.

Now, while "Narnia" (the franchise that spun out of "Lion..." and that Disney hopes spins out of this movie) isn't quite "Harry Potter for fundamentalists," the fact that it's definately a Christian allegory is undeniable. Lewis was a Christian theologian, (one of the most elqoquent writers on the subject ever,) and the story goes that he was motivated to write "The Lion, the Witch and The Wardrobe" (from here on to be known as TLTWATW) after concluding that the younger children who could most benefit from the central messages of the Christ story were also the most likely to be turned-off by the dullness associated with it's telling and the brutal violence associated with it's climax. Thusly, he concocted an allegorical fairytale in which the same beats and messages play out in a more whimsical setting of magical beings and talking animals.

For those unfamiliar with the TLTWATW, in brief: Three children are transported to a fairytale kingdom called Narnia. Created and maintained by a faraway Emperor (read: God), Narnia has slipped into permanent Winter under the tyranny of a Witch (read: Satan) who believes her job as the Emporer's chief executioner (read: "steward of Hell") gives her the right to rule the kingdom. She is opposed by the Emperor's chief emissary, a great talking lion named Aslan (read: Jesus), who makes a grand gesture of self-sacrifice (read: Crucifixtion) that leads to a newly-powerful rebirth for both him and Narnia itself. Get the picture?

In the world of Fantasy literature, Lewis' "Narnia" books exist the lone example of open detente' between the genre's traditional-religious and new-age opposing sides; a sort of printed-page demilitarized zone fixed somewhere between "Left Behind" and "The DaVinci Code." It's possible to read them as a work of Christian evangelism in spite of all the mythological creatures and magic going on, and equally possible to read them as a work of mythic fantasy for children in spite of the Christian symbolism.

Now, as far as Motive Marketing is concerned... Yeah, it's healthy to be scared about the idea of "The Passion" causing a spreading-infection of religiousity in American filmmaking, but this isn't any evidence of that. Whats going on here is "niche marketing," and it happens all the time. There are specialized P.R. firms that make HUGE profits by helping studios to market aspects of their films to certain communities or minority groups. Happens all the time. There are people you can call, if your selling a new release, who'll help you "get the Latino audience to show up" or "appeal to the gay community." Groups like Motive just do the same thing for audiences who self-identify as Christian.

In other words, whats happening here is that Disney has a movie which they think has an appeal to be mined with America's Christian community, and their hiring people to show them how to best do it. That's all.

(It is worth noting, though, that the Religious allegory gets progressively more blatant as the books go on, and it'll be interesting to see how Disney plans to address this if they do indeed get their franchise going.)

Believe me, folks. There are very few people you'll meet who are more immediately distrustful of anything connected to organized religion than me. But I've been following the development of this film closely, and I honestly don't see anything to worry about here. As much as I'm sure the fundie-propaganda machine will try and make it out to be, this isn't "The Passion," and thank God for that :)

P.S. The best reporting on the making of this film, which is looking really spectacular just for the record, is being done HERE:
http://www.narniafans.com/

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REVIEW: The Pacifier

Contains spoilers, read at you're own risk.

Okay, show of hands: How many of you think that making a "wouldn't be funny if ______ had to babysit some rambunctious youngins??" movie is just what Vin Diesel really wanted to be doing at this phase of his career?

Uh... huh. Didn't think so. Well, too bad; because for better or for worse he's there.

Following a mainstream debut in "Saving Private Ryan," and a "who's THAT!!??" supporting role in "Pitch Black," Diesel skyrocketed to instant fame as Dominic Toretto in the car-porn landmark "The Fast & The Furious." Critics had been praising Diesel as a talent-to-watch for awhile, and while "Fast" made him an overnight megastar the type of fans it gained him has been a double-edged sword ever since: "Fast's" fans were, overwhelmingly, 12-20 year old male car-culture afficionados, and Dominic Toretto was a fully-formed creature of their own imagine fantasy-selves: A racially-ambiguous god-of-gearheads, born with street cred and who looked like they wanted to look, talked like they wanted to talk and drove like they wanted to drive. And while this audience will happily line their walls with your posters and purchase any product you lend your face to, they're also not exactly friendly to anything that could be considered a good movie, and they'll punish you severely if you dare try and make one. The "brand new coolest guy on Earth" persona that made Diesel a star has since been closing in on him like iron bars.

The first sign of trouble was "XXX," a would-be franchise with Diesel as an extreme-sports athlete recruited to use his skateboarding, snowboarding and bungee-jumping skills to fight terrorists. Yeah, I can't imagine why that didn't work either. Touted as the vehicle to turn Diesel into the second-coming of Schwarzenegger, it opened meek and finished weak. In what seemed like a smart move at the time to everyone, including me, Diesel skipped the "Fast" sequel in order to make a "Pitch Black" sequel, "The Chronicles of Riddick." Unfortunately, while lightyears better than "Fast" and "XXX," "Riddick" just wasn't good enough to change the growing perception that the coming of Vin Diesel: Superstar was mostly hype. Smaller entries like "Knockaround Guys" and "A Man Apart" vanished from the boxoffice without a trace, and while he's said to be prepped to prove all his critics wrong with a role in Sidney Lumet's next drama, Diesel will first try to re-conquer the boxoffice with THIS entry, his first family film (unless you count his role as the voice of "The Iron Giant.")

Let's be reasonable: You've seen this movie a hundred times. I've seen this movie three hundred times. This is a movie that every major actor known for a "distinct" persona makes sooner or later, the "Movie Star Babysitter Flick." The premise is always the same: Take someone famous, put them in a role reflecting their "stock" public perception and concoct some reason for them to get stuck watching over a flock of child actors. This has been going on since Charlie Chaplin, was carried into the sound era by the Dead End Kids, achieved a kind of transcendency in "Mary Poppins" re-emerged with "Mr. Mom" and found it's modern-age structure in "Mrs. Doubtfire." There's a whole subgenre beneath this subgenre, too, of entries where the "big-joke" is that a "tuff guy" is doing the babysitting. Hulk Hogan, the Barbarian Brothers and even Arnold himself have all gone to this well; but of all of them only Arnie's entry "Kindergarten Cop" is really worth mentioning for the head-slapper realization that it's much more interesting to put cute little kids into a dangerous Schwarzenegger movie than it is to put dangerous Schwarzenegger into a cute little kids movie.

Originally intended as a Jackie Chan vehicle, "The Pacifier" is Diesel's turn on the ride. He plays Shane Wolfe, a Navy SEAL (because really, what other job does someone named Shane Wolfe have?) recently recovering from his first failed mission: The rescue of a U.S. scientist who's new super-secret weapons system, "G.H.O.S.T.," is desired by "the enemy." With the scientist dead, the government spirits his widow off to help retrieve G.H.O.S.T.'s launch key (or activation code, or something like that) from a Swiss Bank, while Wolfe is assinged to protect the late doctor's five children. And I bet you think you're real clever for having already guessed that the brood includes a pair of gradeschool moppets (for cuteness), a baby (for poop jokes) and two dating-age teens (for Important Lessons.)

You could draw a map of this movie just by looking at the poster. In terms of plot, even for this genre, it doesn't have an original plot turn or idea in it's head: It's instantly discernable which kid Wolfe will develop the biggest rapport with, (anyone wanna lay money on it NOT being the one he'd seem to have the least in common with and, thus, innevitably learn the most Important Lessons from?), which will prove more important to the plot than it would first appear, which supporting characters will turn into love-interests, etc. You can actually count the beats toward obligatory scenes like "Wolfe Finds Out He Has To Stay Longer," "Teens Throw Big Party While Wolfe Is Out" and, of course, "Wolfe Teaches One Kid's Nemesis A Thing Or Two." And hey, who wants to bet that there's some Bad Guys slinking around obviously in the supporting cast, waiting for the beat in Act Three where the film turns back into an action movie and... gasp!... stuff that the characters learned from one another earlier in comedy scenes come back into play to save the day! Wow. I mean, raw genius, that's what this screenplay must've been.

Now folks, it's not that I want to play party-pooper movie-snob, ragging on the cute lil' babysitting movie and all the nice lil' casual-filmgoers who'll see it and possibly enjoy it. I like a good mass-market comedy as much as anyone, when it's done right. There's potential in this premise, perhaps not for a great or even good movie buy maybe at least for a funny and diverting one. I like Vin Diesel, and I'd like to see him get out of this slump. But "The Pacifier" just isn't very good, even when graded on the curve of the rest of this genre.

Too much of the movie, truly, is just plain clumsy. Potentially funny scenes and situations fall apart because of huge flaws in the logic of their setups: It's funny and kinda makes sense (in a movie-logic sort of way) that a trained SEAL wouldn't know how to change a diaper, but that he'd never encountered a minivan? Operate seat-belts? That's not funny, that's stupid. And ask yourself this: Would the Vice Principal of a K-through-12 school in an affluent suburb EVER get away, in this day and age, with the open and constant taunting of a young male student as a "twinkletoes," not to mention encouraging other male students to beat him up?

The film features a pair of big action scenes, (not counting the required "this guy is a badass" opening-credits sequence,) both of which appear to have remained intact from when Jackie Chan was to star (you'll see what I mean.) The first has Diesel in a martial-arts duel against a pair of Ninjas (really) that come crashing into the house. No, I'm not kidding, Ninjas. Now, while the scene does a lot to A.) prove that Diesel is a splendidly-gifted physical actor and B.) prove that I'm right when I say that Ninjas can make almost any movie a little bit better, it comes a little too early and plays a little too "harsh" for it to be plausible that the characters would immediately snap back into babysitter-movie-mode once they were dispatched. The scene just doesn't feel like a real part of the rest of the movie, with Diesel's Wolfe suddenly gaining the superpowers of a Hong Kong kung-fu star when he previously had difficulty restraining an elderly Czech nanny (don't ask.) The second is a "maze of traps" bit near the end involving G.H.O.S.T. that pushes the film way over the silly-cliff but also marks it's most original moment ("original" in that I can only remember the same basic idea being used once or twice before, whereas the rest of the film's moments have been used a hundred times before.)

There is one subplot I had to smile at: Wolfe's duties as defacto "den mother" to the female-moppet's Girl Scout troop. It's funny because the pseudo-similarity of Wolfe's military background to the Scouts, and vice-versa, is actually a fun dynamic to explore; i.e. it's funny to see a Navy SEAL leading a "mission" of little girls, and likewise it's cute to see little girls acting like Navy SEALs. It occurs to me that a movie only about a tough military-man becoming the leader of a girl scout troop would probably be a lot funnier than "The Pacifier" where it's just a diversion. Someone should make that. With "The Rock." That I'd go see.

What's really unforgivable, from a story perspective, is that the film has great material at it's fingertips that it never uses. Consider: It was Wolfe's job to save these kids' father, and he failed. Which means he's now acting as surrogate father to a family who's real father's death is partially his responsibility, right? Shouldn't this be weighing on his mind? Mightn't that be a factor in his (innevitable) "attachment" to the job? And what about the kids? Surely, they'll find out eventually and furiously confront Wolfe about it? It'd lead to a terrific "everything on the table" beginning to the 3rd act, wherein the kids come to forgive Wolfe for their father's death as he vows "not to fail you like I failed your father...," no? Yeah, I thought so, too... but this stuff is NOWHERE IN THE FILM. I'm serious, the material "The Pacifier" needs to push it's characters up to the makings of a good movie is right there in the backstory, and it does nothing with it. This is almost criminal-negligence at the script level.

Vin Diesel needs a hit, and this will probably be one. It's certainly not his worst film, though in a filmography where the biggest hits are about street-racing as a religious experience and a guy who can overcome terrorists by snowboarding thats really kind of a backhanded compliment. I still believe there's good things ahead for Diesel, and if he needs a family-friendly entry like "The Pacifier" to get his career back on track I can respect that. It's not even the worst movie in the genre (thanks, Barbarian Brothers!)

But Vin... Mr. Diesel... please: When the gross comes back on this and Disney's eyes light up and they greenlight "Pacifier 2: It's Changing Time" and they've got Shane Wolfe housesitting a bunch of cats because the recently-deceased old lady who'd owned them invented NORAD and they think one of them swallowed the encryption code and Wolfe has to learn about feline care and makes pals with the one cat all the others ignore and he falls in love with a beautiful young Pet Psychic or whatever the hell dumb idea Disney comes up with for the sequel... Don't do it.

FINAL RATING: 2/10

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REVIEW: The Jacket

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