When straight-laced fire superintendent Jake Carson and his elite team of firefighters come to the rescue of three siblings, they quickly realize that no amount of training could prepare them for their most challenging job yet -- babysitting. As their lives, jobs and depot get turned upside down, the three men soon learn that children -- much like fires -- are wild and unpredictable.
I really don't know what I expected with this film. That is to say that I cannot fathom a single thing in the trailer that would give me the impression that Playing With Fire would be an entertaining movie. Perhaps I was lulled into a false sense of security by John Cena's reasonable performances in 2018's Bumblebee and Blockers. Needless to say, this was a complete waste of 96 minutes.
The cast should have really been a huge indicator. John Cena really hasn't managed to break out of that highly narrow military niche that he is in, and it is really limiting in the roles that he gets, and the amount of charisma that he is able to portray; because he has none in this film. John Leguizamo has been in around 40 films, the majority of the roles being a form of comic relief--and a forgettable one at that. Keegan-Michael Key...well you could say I have lost faith in his choice of roles since seeing him in The Predator, and as hard to believe as it is, this is The Predator for kids. This is The Predator meets Instant Family. It isn't a hyperviolent alien action flick, but it has the same style of one-note characters that heavily relies on physical comedy and toilet humour. If farts, poo, and vomit are your comedy gold, then this is the film for you!
There are so many questionable choices in this film. Who is the target demographic? The number of times we watch John Cena stripping off his shirt and wandering around topless, as well as the forced romantic subplot with the awkward scientist (that no child would care about), it would lead you to believe that the biggest target audience is the mothers of the children, and not the children themselves (and really if you were going to try to go after the repressed single-mother audience, at least cast Channing Tatum!). The level of humour is so low, that only the youngest of children will enjoy it, or perhaps Bronies (thanks to the unhealthy amount of My Little Pony that has been incorporated).
The story is incredibly predictable. As soon as an event occurs, you know exactly what the endpoint of that subplot will be. Every single one. There is no subtlety at all to the writing or the cinematography, and while you can let children's films get away with that kind of thing, it still needs to be an enjoyable journey. And this is just painful to watch. Perhaps the biggest letdown of the film is its premise. The trailer shows off these smokejumpers, jumping out of helicopters into raging infernos to battle fires and save lives. Does any of that happen outside of the opening scenes? No. Near enough the entire film occurs within the smokejumpers station. It wastes what is an exciting occupation. The story could have been based around any other occupation; a policeman, the coastguard, a ranger, a security guard, a janitor, and had no real effect on the plot.
While the kid actors are cute and adorable, this film is a complete disappointment. It could entertain toddlers if you were streaming it, but there is nothing that would entertain the maturer audiences. Playing With Fire harks back to the days before writing good stories with comedy for both young and old, became the expectation. This is a straight-to-streaming film, and I have no idea how it managed to get a theatrical release.