'Pacifier' too childish to enjoy

"The Pacifier" is a typical cookie-cutter Hollywood movie. Nothing really new comes out of it aside from replacing the cheap laughs of a testicle biting dog with the cheap laughs of a testicle-biting duck. Even for a kids' movie the humor is pretty low-brow, and you can guess the entire plot just from hearing the premise. Vin Diesel is Shane Wolfe, a Navy SEAL whose next mission is babysitting the family of a dead scientist. At first he and the children don't get along but eventually they start to love each other. Only by working together like a family can they vanquish the bad guys. In the end, Wolfe learns the most important lesson of all, family is the best part of life ... blah, blah, blah.\nDon't get me wrong, "The Pacifier" is probably great if you are still fascinated by things like Play-Doh and sandboxes (not passing any judgment). For the rest of us, "The Pacifier," is little more than an hour and a half of crappy slapstick humor and bad acting. Actually the most fascinating part about the film is Vin Diesel's uncanny resemblance to a talking thumb. In fact, if I used a Sharpie marker to draw a smiley face on my own thumb, said thumb would probably do a better job of acting.\nThen again, considering Adam Shankman directed this movie, we are lucky it isn't any worse. "The Pacifier" is only slightly better than the other saccharine drivel that Shankman has directed, like "Bringing Down the House" or "The Wedding Planner." With credentials like these it is no surprise that this is the man who was chosen to take the helm of the "Cheaper by the Dozen" sequel.\nThe special features on the DVD are pretty run-of-the-mill. There is a blooper reel, a vainglorious making-of featurette and director commentary with Adam Shankman which is so banal that I dare anyone to watch more than 20 minutes of it without feeling the impending need to vomit.\nOverall this DVD is suitable for only two types of people: children and masochists. Anyone else should stay as far away from this movie as is humanly possible.