Grade: B

Verdict: A familiar but family-friendly fantasy.

Details: Starring Nicolas Cage, Téa Leoni and Don Cheadle. Directed by Brett Ratner. Rated PG-13 for language and sensual scenes between consenting adults. Two hours, 10 minutes.

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Review: First, a confession. I'm a sucker for “what if” movies. I even managed to sit through all of last spring's double-Demi whammy, “Passion of Mind.”

So that's probably why it was easy for me to cut “The Family Man” some slack. That and the savvy performances by Nicolas Cage and Téa Leoni. “The Family Man” meshes “It's a Wonderful Life” with “A Christmas Carol” and sprinkles the confection with bits of Rachel Griffiths' “Me Myself I,” “Sliding Doors” and even “Groundhog Day.” OK, so originality isn't the movie's strong point. But remember, the familiar can be awfully entertaining if it's done well. And here, for the most part, it is.

The prologue, set in 1987, shows us Jack Campbell (Cage) saying goodbye to his college girlfriend, Kate (Leoni). He's going to London for a yearlong internship with an investment bank. But just as he's about to board, she gets a twinge of intuition and begs him to stay. “I have a really bad feeling about this,” she says.

She should. Thirteen years later, Jack is a high-living Wall Street whiz. He's got an expensive penthouse, disposable babes, a Ferrari and a closet the size of a small apartment. Kate, however, is nowhere to be seen. Jack is the sort of work-obsessed Master of the Universe who thinks nothing of keeping his staff until 8:30 on Christmas Eve. After all, he plans to be back in his office Christmas Day.

But a late-night encounter with a stranger (Don Cheadle) changes all that.

Jack goes to sleep in glittering Manhattan and wakes up in . . . suburban New Jersey. He's got two kids, a slobbering dog, bowling buddies and he's married to Kate. His Ferrari has been replaced by a minivan, his high-powered career by a job selling tires for his father-in-law. In other words, he's woken up in his own worst nightmare. How can he find his way back to his other life? Cheadle reappears — driving his Ferrari — and tells him, “You have to figure this out for yourself.”

But first he has to figure how to be this new Jack. How to cope with utter strangers who claim to have known him all his life. How to negotiate dirty diapers and day-care centers (leaving off his 6-year-old daughter, he asks, “Do I get a receipt?”) How to wear flannel shirts instead of $2,500 suits. No wonder he's alternately befuddled and furious. Yet the only one who notices something different is his daughter, who decides her real daddy has been abducted by aliens.

Typically, there's something predictable about “road not taken” fables. But “The Family Man” offers some pleasant twists. Unlike the usual “what if” protagonists, Jack isn't dissatisfied with his life. And a mid-movie compromise between his two worlds doesn't work out as we'd expect.

That said, along with that built-in predictability, the film has a couple of major flaws. First, even as it celebrates family values, it's uncomfortably condescending to the burbs, suggesting that they're a hellhole of food courts, outlet malls, wood-paneled dens and heartily gauche neighbors. Second, it just doesn't make sense that the Jack we met in the prologue — even if he is married with children — would become the Jack we meet here: a guy who keeps bowling jokes on his desk and has absolutely no taste in anything, be it a suit or a Barcalounger. A lot of very sharp people opt for the family life without entirely changing their innate sense of self.

So why does the movie work? Because the concept, while formulaic, is also audience-friendly. Because director Brett Ratner, perhaps sensing his limitations (he made — yikes — “Rush Hour” and “Money Talks”) gives his leads free rein. And because those leads are Cage and Leoni.

After a ton of action movies, some good, some appalling, Cage gets to show off his expert comic timing and his unpredictable approach to predictable parts. Even when Jack is at his most formulaic, Cage engages us with his loopy grin and his sideways take on whatever's going on.

As for Leoni, she's crucial to making the fantasy work. She takes a one-dimensional, reactive role and turns it into a coherent character. Leoni is sexy and sassy, loving and lovable. In other words, she's worth trading a Ferrari and a zillion-dollar merger for. And that's the mushy but welcoming center of this warm-hearted home-and-hearth flick.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service