The Game Plan

One suspects The Skinny isn't read by too many seven year old girls, so the intended audience for The Game Plan is unlikely to be put out by the news that, if you're not such a specimen, the experience of watching it is not a pleasant one. A family comedy of enamel stripping transparency, it features Johnson as an arrogant football quarterback who must learn what's really important in life when the daughter he didn't know he had (Pettis) turns up. Cue painful moralising and endless dog reaction shots. The Game Plan does at least confirm that The Rock's delivery and range far outstrips that of his forebear Arnie, but he's hampered at every turn by the grating performance of Pettis, a thoroughly nauseating product of the Disney machine. Worst of all, it just goes on and on, and it's a sad day when even a fart joke can't raise a smile. [Paul Greenwood]