A misfire that stinks like yesterday’s diapers.
The new Mark Wahlberg vehicle “The Family Plan” has Marky Mark quickly changing diapers and fighting gunmen, as if it was supposed to be appease both kids and adults. And this one is rated PG-13. It’s almost like a lame version of “True Lies,” but without the Schwarzenegger or affair suspicions.
Wahlberg plays a family man named Dan Morgan with a loving wife Jessica (Michelle Monaghan), a teenage daughter Nina (Zoe Colletti), a teenage son Kyle (Van Crosby), and a baby boy Max. Trouble brews within this tribe. Jessica wishes they could break free from their normal Buffalo life, Nina wants to go to a different college because of some boy (Colby Burton), and Kyle lives a secret life as a video game streamer named Kyllboi. In fact, the boy pays a friend to keep his mouth shut about his identity.
When some guys harass him, he doesn’t fight back, which his wife appreciates more than he could for himself. Almost like a weak intro to “Nobody.”
But that’s nothing compared to what Dan gets them into. He was a government assassin, whose past comes catching up to him when the criminal mastermind McCaffrey (Ciaran Hinds) sends his henchmen to take him out. So, Dan gets his money and family’s bags packed for Las Vegas, so he can meet with his tech guy (Said Taghmaoui), who can give them new passports.
He never told his family who he really was, and the wife is excited about going to Vegas, although the kids say they have better things to do. I have better things to do then deal with all these movie cliches myself.
Throughout this trip, he acts suspiciously while his family acknowledges that, but barely say they suspect something’s amiss with him. They don’t have a major argument about why he has to throw their cell phones over the bridge; just freeze frames. Although, they do have to pick up a map in order to get to Vegas, since their phones had GPS.
And of course, when his family finds out the truth, it’s predictable that they would turn their back on him because of his lies.
Wahlberg does what he can with his character, especially since he’s a producer of the film, but he’s been so good in so many better movies, that it’s no favor to call attention to this one. “The Family Plan” is unfunny, predictable, and routine, but we expected that. It may find its way on AppleTV+, but that doesn’t mean it’s entertaining. I don’t even think it knows the meaning of that.
Monaghan also gives her weakest performance since “The Heartbreak Kid” as a wife who knows his behavior has been odd, but she just wants to enjoy her expensive meal until he tells her the truth. That’s when she starts to get more irritable, and that’s when she smashes a dirty diaper in a henchman’s face. I think we can agree that when she found out about Ethan Hunt’s life in “Mission: Impossible III,” she handled the situation much better than this.
Maybe this whole experience is supposed to better the family and their personalities and goals, but it all seems typical. And the final battle with the guns and the assassins and the extra plot twists takes way too long for us to care about. “The Family Plan” is nothing we haven’t seen before, so who cares?
Oh, and on a smaller note, sometimes I still call Mark Wahlberg Marky Mark for the sake of times and nostalgia.
Streaming on AppleTV+