(Cert PG, 95mins) Starring Vin Diesel, Lauren Graham, Faith Ford, Brittany Snow, Max Thieriot, Morgan York, Chris Potter, Carol Kane, Tate Donovan. Directed by Adam Shankman.

Anything Arnold Schwarzenegger can do, Vin Diesel can do it better.

That seems to be the message of The Pacifier, a fast-paced family comedy cut from the same cloth as the preposterous Kindergarten Cop.

Not content with bulking up as America's newest muscle-bound action hero (Pitch Black, The Fast And The Furious, xXx), Diesel tries to show us a softer side in this light-hearted romp.

It's clear from the offset, comedy is not his strong point (most of the big laughs are at his expense).

But he exudes a certain charm as a gung-ho hero who meets his match with a gang of mischievous moppets... and a meddlesome mallard duck called Gary which thinks it's a guard dog.

Elite Navy SEAL operative Shane Wolfe (Diesel) is devastated when top government scientist Howard Plummer (Donovan) is assassinated.

Plummer's death is a blow - he was working on a top-secret encryption software program called Ghost, which could prove vital to maintaining US security.

Navy intelligence hopes the secret to Plummer's work lies in his safety deposit box, located in a Geneva bank.

So while Plummer's wife Julie (Ford) heads for Switzerland under the escort of Captain Bill Fawcett (Potter), Shane accepts the most perilous assignment of his career: To babysit the dead man's five wayward children.

Swapping his arsenal of hi-tech guns and wetsuits for lunchboxes and bedtime stories, Shane struggles to maintain control of sassy teen rebel Zoe (Snow), sullen 14-year-old Seth (Thieriot), inquisitive eight-year-old Lulu (York), three-year-old Peter and baby Tyler.

As Shane mellows into his role as surrogate parent, the youngsters learn to appreciate his strict codes of discipline.

The Pacifier is a lightweight and mildly entertaining slice of nonsense, welding obvious laughs - Shane's clumsy first attempt to change a nappy - with slick action.

A pointless romantic subplot involving Shane and the children's headmistress (Graham) is surplus to requirements. So too, sadly, is Carol Kane's wonderful off-beat Romanian nanny, who vanishes once Shane takes charge.