|
|
|
| Daddy Day Care
DVD Review |
|
Order this DVD from Amazon.com
|
Daddy
Day Care
(Special
Edition)
(Columbia TriStar Home Entertainment)
|
| DVD
Release Date:
|
September
23, 2003
|
|
Length:
|
92 mins.
|
| Rated:
|
PG
|
| Format:
|
Widescreen (1.85:1), Full Screen (1.33:1)
|
|
Audio:
|
English Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby 2.0
|
| Subtitles:
|
English, French, Closed-Captioned
|
| Extras:
|
"Meet
the Kids of Daddy Day Care" Featurette, "Quiet On the
Set!" Featurette, "Good Morning, Eddie Murphy!"
Featurette, "What Did That Kid Say?" Featurette,
"Name the Noise Maker" Game, "Kid Card Match
Up" Game, "Odd One Out" Game, Blooper Reel,
"Early Bloomers" Animated Short, Theatrical
Trailers
|
What does a father do when he becomes
recently unemployed? Why open up a day care for kids with your equally
inept unemployed co-father, who knows absolutely nothing about raising and/or caring for kids including his own. Thus the premise
for Daddy Day Care was born. Now, movies like this are very hard to
review, because I don't know who the target audience is. It is an
Eddie Murphy film, and much of the movie is about him and his son, but
he deals with more serious issues. I don't think the kids watching
this film fully get what he talks about. The kid scenes are good, and
even pretty funny - there's just not enough of them. Its Eddie's
reactions to the kids actions that drives this move, something I hope
there is more of in the planned sequel, Daddy Day Camp.
My kids found the movie fun at points and boring at others, and to be
honest I was bored at the same parts of the movie that they were.
There was just to many "grown up" scenes in the movie to capture
the attention of a 5 year old. Kid movies should be written for kids,
but in a way for adults to enjoy as well. Take any Pixar film and you
can see how that is achieved. I'm not trying to be harsh on this
movie, because it does have its moments. Unfortunately, there were just too many adult
moments to please the kids.
One thing that I really did like about the movie is the addition of
Steve Zahn. He plays a trekker in the movie who understands kids -
partly because he is a big kid himself and partly because he
accidentally read a book by Dr. Spock thinking it was something else
entirely. Sure the kids don't get that joke, but its fun for the
adults. The kids loved seeing him dressed up in a big carrot suit and
acting all nuts with the kids. He related to both levels at the same
time. Eddie was either relating to the adults or the kids, but often not both together.
Of course the film needed a villain, and who else but a rival day care
ruled with piss and vinegar by Angelica Huston. Her day care is
strict, not fun and the kids have to learn. It is more like a junior
college than a day care. However, once Daddy Day Care opens, it starts
siphoning students away from her place and she declares war on Daddy
Day Care. I was a little disappointed at the "war" between the two
day care places. My gosh... it was boring and thankfully not central
to the plot. It had to be the lamest war between anyone I've ever
seen. The worst they could come up with is a couple of phone calls and
letting some barnyard animals lose. I've seen better rivalries on
TV. They just could have upped the ante here and they missed out on
it.
Now that Eddie Murphy has gone all PG on us. (Oddly enough, just
yesterday I found my old copy of Delirious... man used to be funny!) His
string of PG movies like Dr. Dolittle, The Nutty Professor, Pluto
Nash and the soon to be released Haunted Mansion, have me longing for
the Eddie of old - the Eddie of 48 Hours, Trading Places, Beverly Hills
Cop and The Golden Child. I liked the risk he took towards adult
comedy in the vastly underrated Bowfinger. He seems to have found a
safe zone, and is afraid to leave it. It's a shame really, because
he really could be doing both.
The Special Features
The DVD isn't all that bad. As for the set up and ease of use, it is
very simplistic and easy to use for the kids. My kids had no trouble
navigating around and could easily find the games. The one thing that
this movie could have left out is one or two of the featurettes. There
are too many featurettes on this DVD. Sure some of the kids were funny
and cute but that only goes so far.
One thing that I really did like was the full motion scene selection
menu, and the way they set it up was perfect. Using the bathroom scene
where Eddie looks around the bathroom in disgust and horror as the
backdrop and the chapter selection over it was a nice and funny
touch.
First of all, kids do not listen to any audio track on any DVD they
have. So why include it? Exactly - don't include it. But why not make
an audio track for the parents? If the kids don't watch it, heck don't
make it PG, when you have Eddie Murphy make it R for the parents.
Heck, don't even make it R, but when you have Eddie Murphy available
get him to do a funny improv type commentary track that the parents
watching this movie will find funnier than the movie!
The games for the kids were okay. Some kept their attention longer than
others. Instead of being heavy on the featurettes it should have had
more games for the kids. But, all in all a decent DVD.
Anyways, the movie is worth a watch. Your kids will like most of it.
| The
Movie: |
  |
6/10 |
| The
Extras: |
|
8/10 |
|
|
|
| Recommendation: |
Rent
This One |
What
did you think?
Have your say on our Message Boards...
Click
here for more information on Daddy Day Care
Blair Barbesin - Contributor
More Reviews - Click Here
|
|
|
|
|
