Though I consider Arnold Schwarzenegger something of a dud as gov… well, I’ll save that for my opinion blog. But I’ve enjoyed him as an actor ever since I saw Conan the Barbarian drop his face into a soup bowl a quarter of a century ago. And as an actor with an impeccable sense of comedic timing, Schwarzenegger was always ready to drop out of action/adventure and into comedy. One of my favorite Schwarzenegger films of this genre was Kindergarten Cop. And now they’ve remade it (though I don’t know if any of the principals will admit this) as The Pacifier, with Vin Diesel attempting — with only limited success — to reprise Schwarzenegger’s role.

Lt. Shane Wolfe (Diesel) is a navy SEAL sent to lead a team to save an American scientist captured by Serbian rebels. He rescues the scientist in an action scene to which Sean Connery as James Bond (or even Roger Moore) would have added some savoir faire, but in the end the rescue goes awry, the scientist is killed, and Wolfe ends up in hospital for several weeks with a bullet or two in him. When he emerges, his commander, Captain Fawcett (Chris Potter), assigns him to baby-sit five children while Fawcett takes the mother (Faith Ford), the wife of the deceased scientist, on an overnight trip to Switzerland to get a safety-deposit box that presumably holds the key to an invention that will enable the U.S. to turn off enemy missiles before they can launch. The overnight trip turns into two weeks while the mother tries vainly to figure out the password that will give her access to the box, and during this time Wolfe, through application of military discipline to a bunch of unruly kids

(a) learns to change diapers;
(b) teaches the oldest daughter to drive;
(c) directs The Sound of Music in which the oldest son has a role;
(d) teaches kung-fu to the second daughter and her pack of Fireflies (Campfire Girls wannabes) so that they can beat up on a gang of aggressive Grizzlies (Boy Scout wannabes) outside the local Costco (product placement?);
(e) exchanges banter with the principal of the local high school (Lauren Graham), a former navy CPO;
(f) fights the school wrestling coach/vice-principal and defeats him without breaking a sweat;
(g) captures evil spies and one evil American traitor;
(h) fights ninjas.

Not necessarily in that order.

There are any number of problems with this film. To start with, in its first half hour it is much too episodic. There’s no real indication of chemistry between Diesel’s character and Graham’s, but right at the end they’re suddenly an item. And I cannot imagine any bank official in Switzerland standing around for two weeks listening to an American woman propose password after password after password, hoping to get the right one; even computer programs are smarter than that. Nor would such an official, after two weeks of utter boredom, attempt to finish the thing by hinting at the correct password. He’d not only be fired, he’d probably be kicked out of Switzerland. As to the American traitor, it was clear to me early on that he would turn out to be a traitor — I don’t know why; he just seemed too smarmy to be an honest-to-goodness loyal American. (There’s an apparent obvious villainess early on in the film, but she’s a red herring — don’t pay too much attention to her.)

If you somehow have an allergy to Schwarzenegger (well, some people are even allergic to peanut butter!!!), I will (hesitatingly) recommend this film. Otherwise, I’d suggest going back and seeing the putative original through another time.