DADDY DAY CARE --------------
Charlie (Eddie Murphy) and Phil (Jeff Garlin, "Full Frontal") take their preschoolers Ben and Max to the playground daily after having both lost their marketing jobs.
Laid-back Phil is accepting of his lot, but Charlie is brewing for a challenge. An off-hand compliment on their ability with children from the wife of a friend (Siobhan Fallon, "Holes") makes a lightbulb pop over Charlie's head and he and Phil go into partnership with "Daddy Day Care."
Supporting players save "Daddy's" day in this pleasant, fitfully amusing family comedy which entertains despite an inconsistent script (Geoff Rodkey) and insipid direction from Steve Carr ("Dr. Dolittle 2"). Although this is a step in the right direction for Murphy, he largely hangs back, letting costars Garlin, Zahn and Jonathan Katz shine. The children are all well cast with the glaring exception of Khamani Griffin as Murphy's son Ben, whom Carr covers for with one too many badly executed vocal overdubs.
Charlie and his wife (Regina King) are fast trackers who enroll Ben in Chapham Academy, the type of preschool that begins to prepare four-year-olds for SATs. When Charlie loses his job and the budget gets tight, the Hintons conclude that Chapman's high fees are no longer justified. Daddy Day Care gets off to a rocky start, but the kids are having a blast and word of mouth begins to siphon off Chapman students raising the vengeful ire of Miss Harridan (Anjelica Huston, "The Royal Tenenbaums"), Chapman's fun-free headmistress.
If you can overlook a script that frequently wants to have things opposite ways (Daddy Day Care can't afford commercial rent but can throw up a professional looking amusement park to earn money) and goes too far out of its way to make points (Charlie returns to the corporate world in order to quit the same day with the 'revelation' that his heart lies with his kids), you'll probably enjoy "Daddy Day Care" for what it is - a cliched but good-natured lightweight flick. Each of the kids has a cute problem to overcome (Dylan has separation anxiety, Tony won't get out of his Flash costume, Ben has trouble making friends, Max is still not potty trained) and not a single one of them has the same species of animal for pet show-and-tell day. The film features an overloud soundtrack with some hits (the Ramones "I Wanna Be Sedated" plays over a montage of sugar-rushed kids) and more misses (more noisy out-of-control kids are accompanied by "Barroom Blitz?").
Murphy radiates warmth as Charlie, but does little that's actually funny. He's the businessman to Phil's entertainer. Garlin is a natural, tossing off one funny line after another and bouncing his bulk through a kiddy mine field. Steve Zahn is always an asset and his Marvin, the 'guy who smells the mail,' is no exception. A Star Trek nerd who is the only one to realize that Nicky, a day care charge, only speaks Klingon, Zahn divides him time between physical pratfalls and the movie's sweetly naive romance with day care mom Kelly (Leila Arcieri, "XxX"). An inspired casting choice is Katz, who makes Mr. Kubitz, the Child Services inspector wielded by Harridan, a delightfully droll straight man to Murphy, Garlin and Zahn. Anjelica Huston plays Harradin as a headmistress right out of an S&M bondage fantasy, but the script gives her no place to go with it. The child actors have varying degrees of success with their roles, with the young actress who plays the precocious Becca showing off the best facility for delivering lines with flare.
C+
For more Reeling reviews visit http://www.reelingreviews.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 34801 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1136646 X-RT-TitleID: 1122414 X-RT-SourceID: 386 X-RT-AuthorID: 1487 X-RT-RatingText: C+
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews