Daddy Day Camp
Directed by Fred Savage
Written by Geoff Rodkey,
J. David Stern and David N. Weiss
Starring Cuba Gooding Jr.,
Paul Rae and Richard Gant
Classification: PG
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About as much fun as being given a wedgie and hung from the camp flagpole, Daddy Day Camp is an unnecessary sequel to Eddie Murphy's 2003 comedy Daddy Day Care, with a new cast. Murphy has been replaced by Cuba Gooding Jr. in the role of Charlie Hinton, with Paul Rae filling in for Phil, Charlie's business partner and best friend, previously played by Jeff Garlin ( Curb Your Enthusiasm).
Former child actor and first-time movie director Fred ( The Wonder Years) Savage works from a script by three screenwriters in what is essentially an anemic reworking of Meatballs, Ivan Reitman's 1979 comedy about kids from an underdog camp competing with their better-off rivals.
Short on character and plot, the movie relies on jokes about exploding toilets and vomiting children. The kids are a collection of stock types: a plump bully who wets the bed, a know-it-all little girl, an aspiring criminal with a mullet, an adolescent sexpot-in-training and Charlie's son, Ben, a little guy with a big heart. Though the young cast members are single-note jokes, they fare well compared with the adult actors, who tend to oversell the jokes desperately, reacting to each new calamity by mugging and waving their arms frantically, as if trying to flag down some comic relief.
The movie starts with Charlie reluctantly agreeing to take his son (Spencir Bridges) to Camp Driftwood, where he discovers the camp of his youth is on the verge of being condemned. He and his friend Phil decide to take the camp over and make it work again. Almost immediately, they learn they have a month to turn it around financially or the bank will foreclose.
As well, rivals from the rich and well-equipped Camp Canola, run by Charlie's childhood nemesis, Lance Warner (Lochlyn Munro), are determined to humiliate them in the annual inter-camp competition. Finally, there's a dangerous methane build-up in the outhouse, which leads to the expected results.
After his first series of setbacks, Charlie reluctantly agrees to the suggestion by his wife, Kim (Tamala Jones), that he reach out to his father, a rigid marine colonel, for help. The slightly-less-unpleasant second half of the movie follows the reconciliation between father (Richard Gant) and son: The redoubtable Gant ( The Cosby Show) flares his nostrils and glares like a bull, Gooding all but licks the lens in his efforts to ingratiate and the children provide a constant source of literal and figurative goo, leading up to the big competition with Camp Canola.
"Show me the money" was the phrase that Gooding introduced in his Oscar-winning performance in Jerry Maguire, in what looked like the launch of a promising career. Let's hope Daddy Day Camp provided him a pile of cash that's at least big enough to hide behind.
Liam Lacey