Eddie Murphy has certainly proven himself one of the funniest
people in the world, but with recent flops
”
Pluto Nash
”
and
”
I Spy,
”
his box-office appeal has come into question.
Eddie Murphy has certainly proven himself one of the funniest people in the world, but with recent flops “Pluto Nash” and “I Spy,” his box-office appeal has come into question. His career has always been one of hits and misses, and for every smash like “48 Hours” or “Nutty Professor,” there is a “Vampire in Brooklyn” to balance it out.
Unfortunately, Murphy’s new film, the nearly unwatchable “Daddy Day Care,” is the worst film of his career and is certainly the worst film of 2003 thus far. A predictable mess of a comedy, “Daddy Day Care” exists on the premise that putting Murphy together with kids at a day care is the perfect comic idea.
Upon opening the center, of course the kids take over, causing unbelievable stress on their supposed guardians. The comedy is bent on the idea that kids running a day center that is supposed to be run by adults is funny, and it could be. But the script depends on kids running around, yelling and screaming on the premise that loud means funny, which simply is not true.
But the film needs believable situations and characters in order for us to care about the comic touches, which are non-existent. The filmmakers simply throw Murphy and his pals into the day care center, let the kids run them ragged and hope that it somehow leads to laughs.
With unbelievable characters and a problematic script, nothing could have saved this colossal failure. Instead of being funny and light, the film is almost impossible to sit through, and although I made it until the end, there were many times througout the movie that I was tempted to call it a day. An unfunny comedy with Eddie Murphy is about as bad as movies get.
The film begins with Charlie (Eddie Murphy), an advertising executive, and his buddy Phil getting the account for a new children’s cereal that is actually made from vegetables. The commercial that they shoot to try to sell the product to kids is one in which Charlie dons a vegetable outfit, fighting another actor in a vegetable outfit. The green outfit Murphy wears is reminiscent of the Gumby suit he wore on “Saturday Night Live,” and seems like an exploitation of that famous character but with none of the laughs.
The ad campaign for the cereal, which Charlie and Phil believe will be a huge success, is, predictably, a major failure. In fact, it’s such a debacle that the campaign causes them both to get the axe. Suddenly, Charlie and Phil find themselves out of a job, with nothing but time on their hands.
In what could only be considered a weird situation, Charlie’s wife Kim (Regina King) heads to work as a lawyer and trusts Charlie to care for their young son Ben, played by Khamani Griffin, a job for which he seems ill-suited.
After caring for Ben for a while, Charlie gets the supposedly funny idea of opening a day care center in order to compete with the hated center run by the film’s bad girl, the evil Miss Harridan (Angelica Huston), whose center he and Kim have been unable to afford. This sets up the major conflict in the film, as Charlie and Phil try to put the “expensive” day care center out of business.
Of course, despite Charlie and Phil’s unconventional and unsuccessful parenting methods, the day care is a huge success, and soon we see kids from the enemy Miss Harridan’s school lining up to joing Charlie’s “Daddy Day Care.” Just when it seems the care could be no worse, things get really bad when Marvin (Steve Zahn), hired by the boys as an assistant, shows up for duty.
The war between Daddy Day Care and Miss Harridan’s care center provides the conflict for the film, and she does all she can to get her business back but is thwarted by our heroes, who have no idea how to run a day care center.
It’s absolutely unconvincing that their day care center could be run the way it is, and if found out by the authorities, Charlie, Phil, and Marvin would be shut down in a matter of minutes. But reality – important to some extent for comedy – finds no place in this mess of a film.
“Daddy Day Care” will probably be a minor hit and will provide laughs for kids, provided they are in the 7 to 10 range, but parents will hate it. If you must take your kids and can’t drop them off, bring a book, along with one of those cool new book lights that don’t illuminate anything but the page. Better yet, take your kids to see “Holes,” the best film of the year thus far, which is funnier and fresher than anything kids will find in the horrible “Daddy Day Care.”
DADDY DAY CARE. Directed by Steve Carr. Written by Geoff Rodkey. With Eddie Murphy, Angelica Huston, Steve Zahn, Jeff Garlin, Khamani Griffin and Regina King. Rated PG (language, kiddie toilet humor), 90 minutes. Now playing at Bay Area theaters.
