It's Just Movies

— by ALEXA MILAN —

If the trailer for Lionsgate’s “The Spy Next Door” looks familiar, it’s probably because the story sounds very similar to Disney’s “The Pacifier.”

In yet another family film fronted by an action star, Jackie Chan stars as a spy asked to babysit his neighbor’s (Amber Valetta) unruly children. But when one of the kids inadvertently downloads an important secret code, he must protect the children from the dangerous men trying to retrieve it.

This film will probably appeal to the same family crowd as “The Pacifier” and the family movies Dwayne Johnson has been doing for Disney, and like those films, “The Spy Next Door” will probably top the box office. But this just feels like a story that has been done before, and if the trailer is any indication, the flat acting and cheesy writing won’t appeal to anyone outside of the family demographic.

“The Spy Next Door” also stars George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus and opens Jan. 15, 2010.

Follow Alexa Milan on Twitter at http://twitter.com/alexamilan.