The Pacifier provides passable, albeit predictable, family fare sure to please the kids without forcing their adult counterparts to whine like babies.
The Pacifier (2005)
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Reviews Counted:126
Fresh:26
Rotten:100
Average Rating:3.7/10
Consensus: Vin Diesel parodies his tough guy image for the family audience, but the result is only moderately amusing.
Rated: PG [See Full Rating] for action violence, language and rude humor.
Runtime: 1 hr 36 mins
Genre: Childrens
Theatrical Release:Mar 4, 2005 Wide
Box Office: $113,006,880
Synopsis: Vin Diesel is great as a navy seal turned babysitter in this kid-friendly action comedy. A botched rescue mission (brimming with stunts) results in the death of a scientist and the hospitalization... Vin Diesel is great as a navy seal turned babysitter in this kid-friendly action comedy. A botched rescue mission (brimming with stunts) results in the death of a scientist and the hospitalization of seal team-leader Shane Wolf (Diesel). Once he recovers, he is assigned to duty as a bodyguard for the dead man's family. But even for a seal--toughened to the point of stoniness--dealing with the chaos, smells, noises, and complexities of a large, fatherless family proves to be a heavy challenge. The kids don't like his authoritative ways and they have no problem defying him at every turn. Eventually everybody bonds and while the family teaches him to listen and relax, he teaches them the combat skills they need to succeed in suburban Los Angeles. It's all very funny but the film really works best as a showcase for the range of Diesel; he takes his pratfalls in stride, his character's devotion to military discipline and honor is inspiring; and his bonding with the family is sweet without being saccharine. What's more, he still gets the chance to kick some serious bad-guy butt. Lauren Graham (BAD SANTA) plays the kindly grade school principal and love interest. EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND's Brad Garrett is hilarious as a sadistic wrestling coach. There's also a crotch-biting pet duck, ninjas, sewer-diving, a troop of kung fu-fighting girl scouts, and the hilarious "Panda Dance." [More]
Starring: Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Faith Ford, Carol Kane
Starring: Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Faith Ford, Carol Kane, Brad Garrett, Morgan York, Max Thierot, Brittany Snow
Director: Adam Shankman
Director: Adam Shankman
Screenwriter: Thomas Lennon, Robert Ben Garant
Producer: Robert Birnbaum, Gary Barber, Jonathan Glickman, Jennifer Gibgot
Studio: Buena Vista Pictures
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Release:
Aug 16, 2006
Reviews for The Pacifier
Vin Diesel is baby food in The Pacifier. He's strained peas, pureed plums and all manner of pabulum. So all older than 5 beware: This is a movie you'll likely want to spit up.
The Pacifier falls into the same category as Are We There Yet? which gave Ice Cube a similar baby-sitting gig with equally dreadful results.
Essentially the same move Schwarzenegger made with his supposedly family-friendly comedy Kindergarten Cop, only The Pacifier is even dumber and considerably more crass.
The Pacifier represents a form of cruel, but actually very usual, punishment for anyone past the age of 7.
The Pacifier is one of those movies that jams together two ideas that in the end don't work.
Without doubt the worst film of the year so far, The Pacifier is actually painful to watch.
This premise is promising, but somehow the movie never really takes off.
The movie plays like it was cobbled together from sheetrock and carpet tacks, this makes The Pacifier just worth your children's time, and hardly worth yours.
Pacifiers are made to appease toddlers, but for the movie version, even that may be a stretch.
Diesel's stern, stubbly demeanor and leaden performance make [Tommy Lee] Jones look like Jim Carrey.
This cross between Kindergarten Cop and Uncle Buck is neither as bad nor as inventive as it could have been. It's not a 180 for Diesel, but more like a 120.
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...
As stinky as the diapers star Vin Diesel constantly keeps sticking his hands in.
The kind of movie that makes diaper duty look like an appealing alternative.
Diesel isn't a terrible actor, but his choice of projects is about as apt as his choice of stage names. What, were Mack O'Kerosene and Buck Unleaded already taken?
[B]rought me... to a low during which I was actually calculating the precise moment in which [this] crossed the line into categorical awfulness...
resolutely sunny and smiley-faced... Next to this, 'The Brady Bunch' looks like 'Long Day's Journey into Night.'
Recycled material through and through, and what it offers in the affability of its star is countered with a mean streak of humiliation passed off as humor.
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