Dadnapped

Plot

Melissa Morris desperately tries to gain more attention from her always preoccupied father, Neal, a best-selling author. Melissa lives in the shadow of Tripp Zoome, the adventurous and clever hero from her father's popular spy novels. Before a long overdue father-daughter vacation, her father gets kidnapped by obsessive fans: Wheeze with his friend, Sheldon and his brother, Andre.

However, the tables turn when she must team up with them to find and rescue him from Merv and his brothers, Maurice and Skunk. It turns out Merv is just using Skunk and Maurice as part of a plan to get Neal to write one final book and uses his daughter as a hostage. Wheeze, Andre and Sheldon get all of the Trip Zoome fans in town to gather together to rescue Melissa and Neal and they attack when Melissa manages to signal them.

The fans attack Merv, Maurice and Skunk and they try to run but are stopped by more fans. Merv sneaks out with Neil while Skunk and Maurice go after Melissa who escapes. Melissa defeats them and ties them up. Merv nearly gets away, but Sheldon, who had been trying to find where everyone went, spots him and alerts everyone else. Neil is rescued, but Merv tries to get away.

As he runs, Skunk, still tied up, come out and see this and, regretting what they've done, use the floss they're bound in to trip Merv, knocking him down and ending his escape. The police arrest Maurice, Merv and Skunk while Neil thanks his fans. Wheeze gives his number to Melissa before she and her father leave on their long-overdue vacation.

Cast

Reception

Its premiere attracted 4.6 million viewers, outshining Nickelodeon's movie, Spectacular!, which premiered at the same time, by 39%.

Despite its commercial success and positive fan response, it was negatively received by critics. David Nusair called the movie (along with Hatching Pete) "typically underwhelming Disney Channel fare."

Adaptations

Dadnapped: Junior Novel is a book based on the movie, which was due to be released September 30, 2008 in the United States and October 21, 2008 in the UK, but the release date was changed to February 2009 to coincide with the movie's release.