Starring: Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Madison Pettis, Kyra Sedgwick, Roselyn Sanchez, Morris Chestnut

Directed by: Andy Fickman

Disney Pictures

The Official Site of The Game Plan

I think my biological clock is ticking.

Gross right? On Friday and Saturday nights of this past weekend I dreamt of babies. Adorable little children that didn’t poop, slept at will and loved me without limitations. It freaked me out, that’s for sure and it wasn’t helped by a trip to see the latest family adventure from Disney, The Game Plan. Though the movie features man-friendly elements like a Pro football setting and Dwayne “The Rock� Johnson in the starring role, it’s the cute little kid humor that takes center stage, and taht did very little to bring me down form my sudden outbreak of baby fever.

I would say in fact that The Game Plan was charming and fun enough for me to embrace the idea of kids more than I would normally. This story about a successful professional athlete that suddenly finds out he has a long lost daughter hits all the right emotional buttons without getting corny, boring or clichéd. That alone for a kid’s movie is enough to recommend it as the majority of them don’t even bother to be realistic, entertaining or original. But The Game Plan excels past the mundane and turns in a funny and tender story of the quality we used to expect form big bad Disney every time.

Still, it is a kid’s movie and that wonderful football backdrop and action hero lead take a big back seat to ballet recitals and bulldogs in tutus. So be prepared gentlemen to have the manly things we take for granted challenged by the sophisticated sensibilities of an 8-year-old girl.

That comfortable Pro Football backdrop? Forget it. Though The Rock plays one of the biggest football players in the game, the sport is no more than an afterthought in this movie. The characters spend more time in the locker room than they do on the football field. Wins and losses that guide the story’s outcome are represented not by big catches in the end zone, but by victory celebrations on the sidelines. You’ll get more satisfying gridiron action from a Peanuts comic.

As an action fan… as a man… it’s hard for me to see The Rock playing daddy for the housewives and toddlers of America. This is clearly a power play move to expand his demographic beyond… well beyond people like me who judge him for taking these kinds of risks. But it’s not that we’re against risks, I thought his turn as the gay enforcer in Be Cool and his less than heroic hero in Doom were fantastic departures from the roles he’s expected to play. I applaud him on those choices, but - The Game Plan? A Disney kid’s movie? A ballet scene? It’s not a bad thing necessarily and he’s actually really good in the movie, but I’m anxious to see one of my favorite current action heroes get back to blowing stuff up.

What I fear is that the big action return might not be a sure thing. Yes, Schwarzenegger book ended Kindergarten Cop with Total Recall and Terminator 2. The guy knew how to play both ends of the industry and jingled it all the way to the Governor’s mansion. But one needs only say, �The Pacifier� to know that even a successful family vehicle can stall an action heroes career. Come on Vin. The lawyer movie was fun, and no one freaked out more than me for your cameo in Tokyo Drift but we need you to punch somebody again.

It’s too soon to tell what fate The Game Plan will have on The Rock’s career, good or bad, but I think with Get Smart on the horizon it’s safe to be optimistic. Besides, he is really good here. Partly because it’s not the same character we’ve seen from him before, and it so easily could have been. We’re used to Rock as the perfect superman but in Game Plan he’s led by his ego, which brings out a whole slew of annoying characteristics. The kind of character choices that made him seem more real and a lot more fun to watch.

Watching The Rock prance around in a leotard or do his best Elvis impersonation to win back his sulking daughter’s heart are not the moments of The Game Plan that will win you over. If there’s anything in this movie that will ruthlessly pull at your heart strings or bring on your own sudden case of baby crazy, it’s got to be that kid.

Madison Pettis, who plays the 8-year-old on the doorstep is REDICULOUSLY cute. We’re talking like Culkin level cuteness circa Uncle Buck. It would be one thing if I were expecting it. I mean, I knew she would be cute but the promotion for this movie just uses her as the straight man setting up wacky situations for The Rock to react to. There was no indication to her abilities as an actress or as a professional adorable person. She certainly holds her own, stealing scenes and drawing laughs like the best of them. In an industry filled with children groomed to be cute it’s nice to find one that can do more than bat her eyelashes and recite dialogue. I still can’t believe the Olsen Twins have credible careers off “You got it, Dude.�

The two leads hold the story together quite well, but they do have a nice collection of supporting players including Roselyn Sanchez, Morris Chestnut and Kyra Sedgwick to back them up. All of them are serviceable in their roles but none of them take advantage of it like Pettis does. Sedgwick in particular seems to be slumming it here, but you can almost sympathize with her deciding to be a movie like this. One could assume that, like The Rock, she wants to do quality material that reaches out to a completely different audience. You can’t play The Closer or Loverboy for your children. But every ounce of hardened sass her character exudes on screen is taken away with a desperate fart joke. I laughed at it, but I felt sorry for her. Perhaps it would have been easier to take if she didn’t look like a hungry ghost.

The Game Plan is a kids movie and I realize that the majority of people reading this are going to be just as interested in hearing about one of today’s biggest action heroes’ selling out to Disney as they are about my sudden attack of baby dreams. Dreams I probably shouldn’t be taking too seriously considering I had a dream about a ham sandwich over the weekend too. And it was just as memorable. Well, you can take The Game Plan slightly more seriously as it delivers a quality family property to the Disney stables that challenges everything manly, but offers up a sweet little story that’s hard to complain about.

Rating: 6.5 out of 10 - I think The Game Plan has a chance to shock some people the weekend. While I was quite entertained by it, The Kingdom is vastly superior film, but it’s a film with an R-rating and sensitive subject matter. Audiences like to laugh, audiences like The Rock, and some audiences like to avoid specifically movies like The Kingdom.

I think the deal breaker will end up being the kids. They’ve settled into their school routine and are ready to drag their parents back to the multiplex. If that’s true then the bedazzled football will beat out Chris Cooper digging a hole in Saudi Arabia any day of the week.

No, The Game Plan isn’t DVD worthy, but say so lovingly. I’m just not the target audience. But it is charming, sweet, and fun. But it might be a good fit for those of you with children, in need of something safe for them to watch that won’t drive you insane. I realize how important that can be, and if you can get past one of today’s action heroes Kindergarten Copping his career into obscurity, then the Game Plan might be something for you.

I have no doubt though that this movie will be huge on DVD. It is a Disney release so hit or miss this fall, it will get a huge push this spring. Even a movie like The Shaggy Dog wound up on a million shelves more than it should have because of who released it. They rule the world and the sooner we accept that, the better off we’ll be. I’m kidding of course, but even if it were true, at least they’re making better movies now.

Enchanted - Well this movie looks absolutely delightful. Seriously. Enchanted, the story of a cartoon princess who finds herself swept into the real world of modern day New York looks like a fabulous tongue-in-cheek adventure that should make fairy tale spoofing, bearable for anyone over the age of 12.

Oh sure, we have Shrek, but I find their references to classic fairytales to be hit or miss. Enchanted instead seems to be focusing on generalities and really running with it. Amy Adams doesn’t play Cinderella, she plays a Cinderella type. James Marsden doesn’t play Prince Charming, he just plays the Prince Charming style. Susan Sarandon totally plays the wicked witch from Sow White though. Check out the trailers, she’s a carbon copy, warts and all. It’s a good thing Disney owns the rights. And props to Disney for being smart enough to go forward with a movie like this that both celebrates and pokes fun out of everything they’re built on.

There’s a lot of potential here. The part animated/part live action set-up should be a great contrast. The characters breaking out randomly into song, the real world animals coming to assist the princess in cleaning the apartment – that’s all classic good fun. But the thing that sold me with this trailer is Marsden. He is BRINGING it as Prince Edward. He’s holding nothing back with the cheesy line deliveries and toothy smiles. This is a great departure for him, even if he is playing another character that pines after a girl who will eventually leave him for someone else. Superman, X-men, The Notebook … Seriously, have a talk with the agent about that. (Holy crap, he’s John Wilks booth in Zoolander!)

An album cover I drew for The Emersons is now available to buy. Follow that link to the Emersons’ Myspace page to check out their tunes as well as the cover for the album which features the bad dressed in gorilla masks rocking out for the onlookers. That was a fun project to work on, and I can’t wait to hear the rest of the album.