Sgt. nanny: Diesel pacifies the troops

The producers of "The Pacifier" surely saw this as human action figure Vin Diesel's "Kindergarten Cop," giving the bald, gravel-voiced knot of muscle a chance to play silly and sentimental with a cast of kids and still kick some bad guy butt. What they got was less Schwarzenegger and more "Mr. Nanny," with Diesel taking over nursemaid duties from that film's Hulk Hogan.

MOVIE REVIEW

THE PACIFIER

DIRECTOR: Adam Shankman

CAST: Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Faith Ford, Brad Garrett

RUNNING TIME: 95 minutes

RATING: PG for action violence, language and rude humor

WHERE: Alderwood 7, Cinema 17, Crossroads 8, East Valley 13, Everett 9, Factoria, Galleria 11, Gateway Movies 8, Issaquah 9, Kirkland Parkplace 6, Longston Place 14, Marysville Cinema 14, Meridian 16, Metro, Monroe 12, Mountlake 9, Oak Tree, Parkway Plaza 12, Redmond Town Center, Woodinville 12

GRADE: D

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Diesel is Navy SEAL hero Shane Wolfe, who blows into the film spearheading a bargain-basement James Bond knockoff action sequence. It ends in disaster, yet Shane's failure to protect his man, an American scientist with a high-tech military invention, is not only never mentioned again, it never even weighs on him when he's assigned to watch over the man's five children, who range from super-pooper infant to surly teenager.

That's only one of the many missed opportunities in the lazy script, which has Shane applying his drill-sergeant social skills to baby-sitting duty while the children's mother's 48-hour mission stretches into weeks. Before you can say "mission accomplished," the child-phobic super-soldier turns into a diaper-changing, child-rearing, teen-counseling super-nanny, winning over his bland, instantly forgettable charges by becoming a combination big brother, surrogate father, driving instructor and musical theater impresario.

The low-key Diesel has an amiable (if not exactly magnetic) screen presence, but he's better in action (a sub-Jackie Chan fight with ninjas in the children's playroom) than playing straight man to the saccharine little kids. When Brad Garrett is let off the leash as a bullying vice principal, all Diesel can muster in response is a blank question mark.

The tinny dialogue of the clumsy screenplay stumbles over the simplest moments of exposition and revelation and Adam Shankman's anonymous direction is plodding at best and downright sloppy the rest of the time. He has the comic timing of an undertaker and he dawdles over meaningless moments, as if vamping through anticipated paroxysms of laughter. It's harmless enough, and far less violent than "Kindergarten Cop," but ultimately this soppy "Pacifier" sucks.

Sean Axmaker is a movie reviewer and freelance film writer based in Seattle. He can be reached via e-mail at seanax@hotmail.com.