(2007)
1.5
Derek Armstrong
If you're Cuba Gooding Jr., you have to live with critics dismissing your every career move as a gauge of how far you've fallen since Jerry Maguire. Daddy Day Camp is the consummate example of that ongoing downward trend. But Gooding isn't the problem with this limp sequel to the slightly less limp Daddy Day Care. He's not much of a downgrade from Eddie Murphy, and he's plenty lively and charming. The problem is just about everything else, from Gooding's co-stars on down to the writing and the directing. As Phil, Gooding's partner in the day camp venture, Paul Rae defines the term "lifeless." He may look like a slightly thinner John Goodman, but he hasn't an ounce of Goodman's presence; he even comes up short on the low bar set by Jeff Garlin, who played his role in the original. And where the supporting roles in the first film were classed up by the likes of Anjelica Huston and Steve Zahn, it's "household names" Lochlyn Munro and Joshua McLerran filling the same plot function here. But the biggest disappointment may be Wonder Years star Fred Savage, who could have been a deceptively smart choice as director. Instead, Savage wildly over-directs an endless succession of pratfalls and potty humor. (What's more, it can't be a coincidence that there's a romantic subplot in which the boy camper resembles a stammering Kevin Arnold, and the girl camper resembles a hair-tossing Winnie Cooper.) Daddy Day Camp relies on the cluelessness of the dads for laughs, but that doesn't work, because we know they've already set up a highly successful day care. It's also problematic that the primary conflict doesn't have anything to do with the children, but rather, with Gooding's Charlie Hinton getting out of the shadow of his military dad (Richard Gant).
Daddy Day Camp on AllMovie
Daddy Day Camp (2007)
