At one point in DADDY DAY CARE, a character competing for the pre-school business in a prosperous suburb says that she cant compete with fun. That could well be the theme of this movie. After a promising opening the flick quickly devolves into a formula piece whose only surprise is that Eddie Murphy, giving his all this time out, couldnt spark more life into it. If youve see the trailer for this dog, youve seen pretty much all the good moments.
That opening involves a brief glimpse of what working life was like for Murphys character, Charlie, before being laid off from his marketing job. He has to convince a focus group of kids to actually like a breakfast cereal called Veggie-Os. This involves guys dressed as a carrot and a stalk of broccoli desperately attempting to engage those kids enthusiasm, both before and after said kids turn hostile and bring the vegetables down. There is something about a guy sporting a spray of green chenille and equally green tights that just works for me, I guess. Plus the whole idea has a few sparks of social commentary to go with the ancillary toppling of the giant carrot.
Unfortunately, things peter out very quickly from there, becoming the cinematic equivalent of the sort of over-sugared junk food that the story continues to decry. While his wife goes back to work as a lawyer, Charlie, along with fellow unemployed dad, Phil (Jeff Garlin from CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM), turns to operating a day care center out of his home and the two have all the would-be zany mishaps that youd expect from middle-brow Saturday morning cartoons as they discover just how hard taking care of kids, especially someone elses kids, really is. There is the potty humor, the farting humor, the kiddie kick to the family jewels humor, and the general running amok humor that always seems to involve clouds of feathers floating like happy puffy clouds amid the wholesale destruction.
At least screenwriter Geoff Rodkey had the sense to add a villain to the mix, though not a good one. That would be Miss Harridan, a word so evocative of her personality that it cant be a coincidence, just in case we dont get that shes the one were supposed to be rooting against. Shes the headmistress of Charlies only real competition, a violently overpriced pre-school that confuses babysitting with boot camp in designer uniforms. Angelica Huston, who does silky malevolence so well, is here reduced to a caricature with a role so thinly written that its a wonder that she wasnt rendered completely transparent. The rest of Rodkeys writing strategy is to trot out a parade of adorable kids with equally adorable issues and let them wander around sharing their adorableness with us. Its truly amazing how quickly adorable can get on a persons nerves. While Garlin and Steve Zahn as the Trek-obsessed ex-broccoli and third member of the day care team both do wonders with the physical humor that theyre called upon to perform, theres not enough between pratfalls to shore up this crumbling premise.
By the time we get to the part where Charlie sees how important taking care of kids really is to him, weve been waiting for him there for at least an hour and a half. Thats a shame, because, as I mentioned before, Murphy seems to be making an effort to act, not merely perform, something that has been sorely lacking of late (dont make me dredge up THE ADVENTURES OF PLUTO NASH). With so few films that parents can take their younger kids to, and the good-natured attitude of the film as a whole, he might just squeak by box office-wise with this less than stellar effort and, with any luck, the next time out, well be back on track with something that evokes his glory days of BEVERLY HILLS COP and 48 HOURS. I hope so. I miss that Eddie Murphy.
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