Movie Monday: The Pacifier vs. The Gameplan

When I was growing up- Disney's live action movies weren't just remakes of their classic animated stories- they had actual original movies or adaptations of their books, continuations of their Disney Channel Original Shows... and they just had a lot to offer. In 2005 they came out with The Pacifier- which had Vin Diesel as a tough action guy that was babysitting 5 children after their father was killed on a mission he was on. And then in 2007 they improved on this idea- in my opinion- with The Game Plan in which Dwayne The Rock Johnson as the Tough Football Player that finds out he has a daughter.

The Pacifier

Okay the concept to the Pacifier is more complicated and BONKERS than I remember it being. Vin Diesel is on a mission to protect this professor who has a program called Ghost that allows no country to be able to fire missiles or something... because somehow a computer program can do that... Vin Diesel is about to save this professor and then the professor stops to show Vin Diesel a picture of his beautiful family... and then he dies.

Vin Diesel's Shayne has to protect the family while the Professor's wife has to go to a bank or something where she needs to unlock a vault or something of her husband's. She's supposed to be gone for just a day or two... but he protected the vault with a password that takes her 2 weeks to figure out... and the passcode is "My Angel" which is engraved on her wedding band... it was all just kind of random and the fact that it took 2 weeks for her to come back and basically a total stranger is watching her kids... it's weird.

So Shayne is taking care of these 5 kids. A Daughter that can't drive and just throws massive parties and has a jerk boyfriend, a teenage boy that's on the wrestling team because his dad wanted him to be but he really just wanted to act, a younger daughter that is in the girlscouts and gets bullied by the Boy Scouts, a toddler that won't go to sleep without someone doing The Peter Panda Dance- which his dad made up for him, and a baby. There's also a duck and a nanny who quits because the teenagers set up a home alone trap to get Shayne to fall down the stairs.

The oldest daughter crashes the Driver's Ed car and then Vin Diesel just lets her drive the family to school. She also throws a giant party while Shayne is taking her little sister to her Girl Scout Cookie Sellign thing... and its like a raging party when she knows he's just going for a couple of hours. And Shayne makes them clean the whole house.

The Son doesn't like wrestling and his Vice Principal is the Wrestling Coach and he's very mean and played by Brad Garret. The Vice Principal finds an item that is worn by bad guys in World War II in the locker... to which Shayne says "he's going through something because his father just died." And... I don't think this particular response... makes sense at all... but then he finds out that the son was just in The Sound of Music... which Vin Diesel loves because a Nun falls in love with someone in the military and he's in the military.

At this moment Brad Garrett also mentions something about "I could understand if it was beer or a hamster. Boys will be boys." Ummm... I think the hamster comment implies some things that I definitely didn't understand as a kid.

Anyway next up is the Girl Scout that is selling her cookies when Boy Scouts are unnecessarily mean to her and the Girl Scouts... they call her cookies skanky... which is kind of intense... and Shayne teaches them how to defend themselves with military tactics.

Also the villains of this movie... the guy that is going to unlock the vault or whatever with the mom and the next door neighbors who are ninjas... and the only Asian characters in this movie... so this is insensitive. And Vin Diesel needs to do The Peter Panda Dance to get to the Ghost Program which is too heavily secured. It's basically a Squid Game... they could have died getting this.

And there's more I didn't talk about. There's a romance, there's a wrestling match... a lot happens in this movie and it is just very weird. Overall it's an entertaining movie but the plot could have used some work. I think Disney realized that when they did a very similar concept a couple of years later with the next movie I'll talk about.

The Game Plan

Okay The Game Plan is way better. I've seen this one a bit more and I'll probably talk about it a little bit less because its a more memorable movie to me than The Pacifier was- so I didn't feel like I was watching a completely different movie than I watched as a kid- I was just kind of enjoying the movie. I was a little older when The Game Plan came out- so maybe that's why. I'm also pretty sure my mom has seen both of these movies but when I had The Pacifier on- my mom said "Ohhh this is funny- but I thought The Rock was in this." So Clearly my mom thinks The Game Plan is more memorable. She also might be biased because she loves The Rock.

Anyway this is a little less complicated- a little girl shows up at The Rock's aka Joe Kingman's apartment and she says she's his daughter and she is! His ex wife had a daughter without telling him and she was on a trip to Africa so she had to go to her father's house without warning. Seems weird right? But The Rock finds room for her and as the movie goes on he becomes a better dad.

This is kind of what The Pacifier is missing because there was no growth for Vin Diesel's character... he just kind of is a father type figure from the beginning... but The Rock has the progression where you can see he loves his daughter by just little moments and little things that he does... and then at the end you do see he's very good and would do anything or his little girl that he loves more than anything. And it's really cute and really funny. The little girl in the movie is great- the Rock is really great... and the love interest in this is a little more casual and there's a progression towards that too.

There's also a cute dog in this movie that just falls in love with the girl immediately and it is very cute.

I would recommend watching either of these movies on Disney Plus... they're both really fun and funny and I had fun watching them and comparing the two.

Bye!

-Shannon