The Game Plan review

Arnie, Eddie, Vin: aging action stars usually look silly tussling with nippers. Maximum kudos, then, to Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson, who makes the downsizing shift from action pics to kiddie flicks look so effortless it could be his true calling. The Game Plan’s the kind of formulaic syrup Disney cranks out on a production line: quarterback Joe Kingman (Johnson) cries foul when the eight-year-old daughter (Madison Pettis) he never knew he had gatecrashes his bachelor life. ’Course, it’s all just a countdown to a big-hearted pay-off, but the charismatic ex-WWF star knows how to please the under-eights. No showboating, just bags of ego-deflating slapstick (involving food blenders, ballet recitals, bubble-bath disasters), laced with the big guy’s knowingly cheesy grin. We could have lived without the Elvis Presley singalong, mind…