Post by StevePulaski on Jul 25, 2012 9:25:47 GMT -5
Rating: ★½
Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, and Steve Zahn are actors I only tire of when I see them in atrociously hackneyed material like this. Murphy has an incredible talent for outrageous and vulgar comedies, where his contortionist facial expressions and loquaciousness can sustain an entire movie experience, Garlin is an expert at deadpan humor, which he learned from years of working on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Zahn can take most any role, even the role of an everyman, and put a fun, creative twist on the character.
One can not fault them for Daddy Day Care's failure. It arrives to the viewer like a job applicant arrives to an interview on the worst day of his life. His tie isn't put on correctly, his hair a mess, his voice wheezy and unsophisticated, his clothes not ironed and wrinkled, and his desperation soaring to new heights. On most everything this film tries to accomplish, it's late, meaningless, and flyweight.
The story concerns Eddie Murphy's Charlie, a middle-class man working as a product-promoter, I guess you'd say, and has a wife who has just gone back to work as a lawyer after the birth of their son. When Charlie and his co-worker Phil (Jeff Garlin) are laid off and Charlie and his wife can no longer pay the bills for their son, who attends a prestigious preschool, they contemplate ways to earn money and discover that they could open a day care center, boasting the idea that men can do anything women can do and calling it, "Daddy Day Care."
Of course, this will brew such inspired setups like a "burp off" between the band of dysfunctional rugrats, ridiculously over-exaggerated sugar rushes, mindless chatter, recklessness, farting, male incompetence, adults acting like kids, kids acting like intolerable deviants, and so on. Miss Harridan, a teacher of the prestigious preschool, played by the only one who seems to be caring how the picture turns out, Anjelica Huston, notices the men and their newfound success and tries to run them off the map by alerting the village of rules they have broken, abrupt hazards, etc. Frustrated, without options, and overwhelmed with children, they eventually call in the incompetent and socially-awkward Marvin, played by Steve Zahn, who just further adds complete idiocy to the film and its line of events, along with breeding an emotionally vacuous love story.
After a good hour of child recklessness and anarchy, the film tries to add a touching, remorseful moral about family, the importance of having fun, while learning, and so on and so forth. This would be welcomed if the film didn't intentionally rely on its silliness and ineptitude to drive itself into a contrived conclusion covered in banality. I'll reiterate by saying I'm a huge fan of Eddie Murphy and his schtick, but Daddy Day Care challenges just are far I'll go to show my support and devotion.
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Steve Zahn, and Angelica Houston. Directed by: Steve Carr.
Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, and Steve Zahn are actors I only tire of when I see them in atrociously hackneyed material like this. Murphy has an incredible talent for outrageous and vulgar comedies, where his contortionist facial expressions and loquaciousness can sustain an entire movie experience, Garlin is an expert at deadpan humor, which he learned from years of working on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Zahn can take most any role, even the role of an everyman, and put a fun, creative twist on the character.
One can not fault them for Daddy Day Care's failure. It arrives to the viewer like a job applicant arrives to an interview on the worst day of his life. His tie isn't put on correctly, his hair a mess, his voice wheezy and unsophisticated, his clothes not ironed and wrinkled, and his desperation soaring to new heights. On most everything this film tries to accomplish, it's late, meaningless, and flyweight.
The story concerns Eddie Murphy's Charlie, a middle-class man working as a product-promoter, I guess you'd say, and has a wife who has just gone back to work as a lawyer after the birth of their son. When Charlie and his co-worker Phil (Jeff Garlin) are laid off and Charlie and his wife can no longer pay the bills for their son, who attends a prestigious preschool, they contemplate ways to earn money and discover that they could open a day care center, boasting the idea that men can do anything women can do and calling it, "Daddy Day Care."
Of course, this will brew such inspired setups like a "burp off" between the band of dysfunctional rugrats, ridiculously over-exaggerated sugar rushes, mindless chatter, recklessness, farting, male incompetence, adults acting like kids, kids acting like intolerable deviants, and so on. Miss Harridan, a teacher of the prestigious preschool, played by the only one who seems to be caring how the picture turns out, Anjelica Huston, notices the men and their newfound success and tries to run them off the map by alerting the village of rules they have broken, abrupt hazards, etc. Frustrated, without options, and overwhelmed with children, they eventually call in the incompetent and socially-awkward Marvin, played by Steve Zahn, who just further adds complete idiocy to the film and its line of events, along with breeding an emotionally vacuous love story.
After a good hour of child recklessness and anarchy, the film tries to add a touching, remorseful moral about family, the importance of having fun, while learning, and so on and so forth. This would be welcomed if the film didn't intentionally rely on its silliness and ineptitude to drive itself into a contrived conclusion covered in banality. I'll reiterate by saying I'm a huge fan of Eddie Murphy and his schtick, but Daddy Day Care challenges just are far I'll go to show my support and devotion.
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Jeff Garlin, Steve Zahn, and Angelica Houston. Directed by: Steve Carr.