The People’s Review: Early Look at the Game Plan

Let me lob some caveats at you before we get into the meat of this review. First, I do not “own” any of these “children” I keep hearing about. Secondly, I am generally pretty cynical (you probably know this if you’ve happened to land on Brahsome before).

All that being said, if I had kids, I would totally watch this movie with them. I know, I know. Whatever. But I swear I’m not schilling out to any corporate feeding hand here – seriously, as far as I can tell we aren’t getting paid for this (although we’re certainly not opposed). Look, the movie is a little cheesy, but it’s produced by Disney and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as a self-absorbed football player in Boston who happens to find his illegitimate love child knocking down his door just a few short weeks before the playoffs begin, so, uh, what was I expecting going in? Exactly.

The plot kicks off with the Rock living up the life of a superstar quarterback in a big sports town. He’s egotistical, calls himself “The King” (Joe Kingman is his character’s name) and is constantly telling his teammates how great he is, flexing his abs/pecs/lats/what-have-you, posing for the cameras and watching video of himself. But that’s not the only thing he’s running from…(sorry)…he simply cannot face up to the importance of realizing that while there may be a “me” in “team”, there is no “I”.

Early props go out to Madison Pettis who plays “Peyton Kelly”, the Rock’s young ‘un. She’s smart, cute, kind of funny in that little kid way, etc. and a good little actor. I’m not handing her an Oscar or anything, but for a freaking ten year old, she was impressive, m’kay?

Now, I will admit the old “guuuuuuuuud gaaaaaaaaahhhhd” groan got busted out early when we find Kingman asking his little bulldog, Spike, if he wants to watch “ESPN’s latest” biography piece on Joe Kingman. Then I realized that I just spent about 15 minutes on the radio promoting my own fantasy basketball column through a separate website that I own, and that I am not exactly “not-promiscuous” with my linking of other personal stuff. So you know what? If I owned ESPN (like Disney does), I’d be promoting the hell out of it too. So total free pass. Until Jim Gray showed up later.

The storyline evolves exactly like you think it will – Joe’s daughter shows up, Joe doesn’t get along with her, the juxtaposition of a star man’s man quarterback and a little girl ballerina creates shenanigans galore, Joe evolves as a person and the Aladdin music plays. Or something like that. Throughout the movie, we are consistently presented with Joe’s queries as to “the best thing that’s ever happened to him” and issues with his team’s inability to win the Super Bowl. The latter insecurities are compared with Peyton’s inability to win the big game issues with her parental situation. So for that, I give the movie credit. I’ve never dealt with divorced or single parent issues, but I think for a youngster watching this movie, it might actually provide some sort of instructional, empathetic coping lesson. Or maybe I’m just going to be a horrible father. Feel free to let me know.

Obviously, by the end of the movie (um, “spoiler alert”, right?) Joe has gone through a transformation. This personality change is manifested through the female characters of the movie. There’s his wife (who I totally thought was Aunt Becky from Full House at first) that doesn’t trust him, Kyra Sedgewick playing the role of greedy agent who only wants the best for Peyton to further Joe’s career and Roselyn Sanchez as Peyton’s foxy ballet instructor (and a former “Island Girl” from Captain Ron! Thanks, IMDB!) that finally gets Joe to understand the importance of his daughter in his life. Naturally, the team bonds in some way through the daughter’s sickness – despite their initial begrudging of Joe’s appearance in Peyton’s ballet production – and surprisingly, the they win the Super Bowl biggest game of the year.

Final Grades:

Plot: B+/- Haha! Try that little plus-minus on for size! Seriously, I can’t give it a “B+” because it’s a very generic plot line. But I’m trying to think of this as a parent or as a kid and in that situation, I can’t give it a “B-” either. It’s entirely possible I developed schizophrenia just now.

Casting: C+ The Rock fits the part. Kyra was m’kay. Ms. Pettis was superb. Roselyn, please note that I am in fact single. I’d say the same to you Kyra, but I don’t have a “Closer” joke ready.

LOLStix: C Honestly, I didn’t hurt myself laughing. But I didn’t expect too.

Cameos: B It worked itself up quite nicely from the initial Stu Scott appearance. (What? Cameos are important to me. I’m nothing if not shallow and easily amused by celebrity.)

Synergy: A The ESPN references were there, but not too over the top, surprisingly. Or maybe I’m just inundated with them at this point. Plus, I would think that in a “normal” situation, i.e. anything but a super-cynical, single blogger dude trying to enjoy some time with his kids/relate to his children, the consistent sports-culture references would be a welcome relief.

Extras: A+++++ There’s just waaaaay too much unintentional comedy here. The bloopers aren’t funny, but the fact that Marv Albert is narrating them absolutely kills me. And apparently the Rock tore his ACL during production, and while they’re taking you “inside the movie” and start talking about, they play this really sappy music like some handicapped kid died before ever getting his Make-A-Wish and you half expect Jeremy Schapp to pop out of nowhere. And then Sean Salisbury is instructing someone on how to play quarterback? I mean, I know he’s ESPN’s lead football analyst (right?) but he does have a 55 percent career completion percentage and a 1:1 touchdown to interception ratio. It’s not like people hire me to tell their kids how to graduate college in four years.

Overall: C+ Got kids? Rating goes up; go see this movie with them.

Tagged as: Dwayne Johnson, The Game Plan, The Rock