Daddy Day Care Review
by Michael J. Gold (mjgold01 AT yahoo DOT com)June 10th, 2003
Daddy Day Care ** (out of 4 possible stars)
Directed By: Steve Carr
Written By: Geoff Rodkey
Music By: David Newman
Charlie Hinton: Eddie Murphy
Phil: Jeff Garlin
Marvin: Steve Zahn
Mrs. Harridan: Anjelica Huston
Jenny: Lacey Chabert
Bruce: Kevin Nealon
Running Time: 1:32
Rated PG (for language)
Reviewed by: Michael J. Gold
Charlie Hinton (Eddie Murphy) is a hardworking businessman who is stuck on a project, Veggie-Os - a vegetable flavored breakfast cereal, with no possible chance of success. This concept alone has formulated literally hundreds of Dilbert cartoons over the years and made Scott Adams a very rich man. Unlike Scott Adams, though, Charlie is far from rich. Charlie is in marketing, the scourge of Dilbert's world, which along with advertising, seem to be the only professions for executives in movies. When Charlie's project fails, the entire health food division is shut down leaving Charlie and his coworkers out of a job.
Charlie quickly finds that in our current sluggish economy finding a new job isn't always easy. Charlie's wife Kim (Regina King) goes back to work as a lawyer leaving Charlie at home with his son Ben (Khamani Griffin). One afternoon while having lunch with former coworker Phil (Jeff Garlin), Charlie gets the idea to open a Day Care and thus Daddy Day Care is born.
There's nothing wrong with the initial concept for "Daddy Day Care", however, the implementation is a complete and utter failure due to the fact that it removes itself it little too far from the real world. Charlie and Phil are portrayed as bumbling idiots when it comes to taking care of children. For example, on their first day of childcare service these two fathers try to hand out and read mission statements to pre-school children. Then these two formerly intelligent and successful businessmen lose such control of the children that one ends up starting and driving the riding lawnmower.
"Mr. Mom", a far better and more intelligent film that also utilizes the concept of a man losing his job and then taking over the domestic responsibilities was much better done. In that film Michael Keaton played the father of three children who gets overrun by all the duties of taking care of his children, however, for the most part, Keaton's Jack Butler is a competent father and everything manages to stay in the realm of the possible.
It is a given that "Daddy Day Care" is not a film to be taken seriously and it does have moments that are genuinely funny, though most of these come from Steve Zahn in the role of Marvin as a huge Science Fiction junkie who read Dr. Spock's book of childcare and was shocked to discover that it had nothing to do with Star Trek. Between Zahn and the children, Eddie Murphy is relegated to trying to make funny faces to produce laughs.
"Daddy Day Care" must have seemed like such a simple concept, just put Eddie Murphy and a bunch of cute children in front of the camera and the laughs will come, that no one thought twice about whether or not the script was actually any good or what message it might send. Certainly director Steve Carr has made a safe picture that parents could take their children to, but he failed to put any thought or effort into being certain that he made a good film. Regardless, he managed to get paid a lot of money for simply going though the motions. Dogbert would be proud.
Copyright 2003 by Michael J. Gold
Michael Gold
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