The Rock lays the smackdown on parenthood with The Game Plan, recently released on DVD. Does The Game Plan score a touchdown or will it fumble in the endzone?
The Cast
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson-Joe Kingman
Madison Pettis-Peyton Kelly
Kyra Sedgwick-Stella Peck
Roselyn Sánchez-Monique Vasquez
Morris Chestnut-Travis Sanders
Hayes MacArthur-Kyle Cooper
Paige Turco-Karen James
Brian J. White-Jamal Webber
Jamal Duff-Clarence Monroe
Gordon Clapp-Coach Mark Maddox
The Running Length
1 Hour and 50 Minutes
The Rating
PG For Some Mild Thematic Elements
The Movie
Family comedies are always a good bet when it comes to box office sales. Unless you cast a bunch of unknowns, or have a story that doesn’t appeal enough to kids, you are guaranteed a decent payoff. “The Game Plan” is no different, as it was able to rank in over $100 million worldwide with solid reviews on top of that. Now “The Game Plan” is out on DVD and the movie, while unoriginal, is still an entertaining two hours.
Joe Kingman (Dwayne Johnson) is a quarterback for the Boston Rebels, a successful football team that has never won the championship. Kingman is a bachelor and a cocky son of a bitch. Whether its running the ball in for the winning touchdown instead of throwing it to an open receiver or yelling at his friends for spilling soda on expensive furniture, Kingman thinks he’s #1 and that makes him better than everybody else.
That is, until Peyton (Madison Pettis) comes into his life. Peyton is Joe’s eight year old daughter that Joe never knew about until now. So begins the wacky adventures of Peyton and Joe. Like most family movies with this type of premise, they don’t get along…at first. Peyton messes up Joe’s kitchen, makes a big mess with bubbles, and we all get to see the chemistry between Joe and Peyton shine. As the Rebels get closer to the big championship game, Joe begins to realize the importance of his family and friends and what is most valuable in his life.
Throughout the movie, Kingman learns to be a good father, meets a hot, and I emphasize HOT, ballet teacher Monique Vasquez (Roselyn Sánchez) and deals with his greedy agent Stella Peck (Kyra Sedgwick). Like I said either, the movie goes through the motions of most family movies. There’s a sad part in the middle, everybody is crying and emotional, then in the end, everything gets good again and everybody is happy at the end.
What works for this movie is the fact that Dwayne Johnson just oozes out charisma. Say what you will about his wrestling past; Johnson knows how to act. It may not seem like it, but he does a way better job at the family movies than any other action star to date (the only one that beats it is Arnold in “Kindergarten Cop”…but that was more unintentionally funny than serious). When The Rock needs to be self-centered and stuck up, he hits it perfectly. When he has to get all teary eyed in the second act, he hits that perfectly as well. Johnson makes the movie watchable and saves the fact that it is like any other family movie out there.
It also doesn’t hurt that the chemistry between Johnson and co-star Pettis is great, striking a fine balance that doesn’t boggle down the movie or play their relationship as over the top. Johnson also mixes well with Sánchez and while the romance isn’t played out that well, they make the viewer believe that both of them could have a future together.
The supporting cast is also solid, with Kyra Sedgwick playing the greedy agent that only cares about the money and not Kingman’s life. She is evil without going into Glenn Close as Cruella de Vil territory. The other notable role is Morris Chestnut as teammate family man Travis Sanders, who helps to show Kingman the benefits of fatherhood. Chestnut mostly stays in the background, but gets some screen time to move the story along.
The movie is a good family movie and one that the kids will enjoy. There could have been a bit more football in it, as the football that is shown hardly counts for anything, but I guess that really wasn’t the point of the movie. If you have kids, are a kid, or you adore The Rock, you will love this movie. Everybody else will find it to be a unoriginal family sports movie driven by fine acting from Dwayne Johnson and superb chemistry between Johnson and co-stars Pettis and Sánchez.
The Score (Out Of 10)
7
The DVD Specifics
I’m no expert on video and audio qualities, so I’ll just go into basic specifics. On the audio side, there is a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, French and Spanish Language Tracks, and French and Spanish Subtitles. The movie is in Widescreen or Full Screen so you got your pick there. I personally enjoy Widescreen, but it all depends on the type of television you have.
The Bonus Material
Bloopers With Marv Albert-3:02: These are basic bloopers with Albert doing terrible commentary added in. You can definitely tell these were made for kids eyes and ears as Albert makes the viewer feel like they are eight years old. Listen, Marv, I don’t need you explaining to me how Sánchez can’t open a door. I can see it myself! Anyway, it’s a decent collection, but something you would only watch once.
Deleted and Extended Scenes (With Introduction by Director Andy Fickman)-21:12: There are nine scenes and some of them are worthy of watching at least once. The introductions help to explain why the scenes were cut. The first scene of the team playing football and losing instead of winning would have been a totally different direction for the movie and may have been more interesting to play out.
Behind The Scenes Featurette-20:17: This is your basic making of featurette. Everybody praises each other and says how great of a movie it is. They talk about how all the actors came to getting their roles and what they all brought to the table. However, the featurette does take an interesting turn when they talk about shooting the football scenes and there is even a discussion of Johnson’s injury, which almost shut down production of the movie.
ESPN’s Sportscenter: The Rock Learns to Play Quarterback-3:33: Sean Salisbury interviews Dwayne Johnson for a Sportscenter segment. Obviously, since this is Sportscenter, this featurette goes more into the technical side of football and what Johnson had to do to become a believable quarterback. Overall, it is very basic, but interesting to see how Johnson changed his style of playing from college to professional.
Sportscenter DVD Exclusive: The King in Search of a Ring-5:04: This featurette is basically an extended version of the Sportscenter segment that Johnson watches in the movie. Johnson totally plays the role of Joe Kingman perfectly and makes the featurette watchable.
Universal “Mood” Remote Control Menus-Basically, this just changes the DVD menu around and was definitely added to please the kids.
Sneak Peaks-One is for Sportscenter, the rest are for upcoming Disney movies.
Overall: A decent collection of bonus material, but like most movies, there isn’t anything that really stands out. Most people don’t buy this type of movie for the bonus material, which is why Disney didn’t go too crazy with the bonus material. The behind the scenes featurette does go into great detail about how the movie was made and how certain scenes were filmed, but the others ones are disposable.