Wow. I can only assume that either Cuba Gooding Jr.'s agent is crazy. How else can an actor go from an Oscar-winning performance in "Jerry McGuire" to making crap like "Daddy Day Camp" in a decade? As the expression goes...."my how the mighty have fallen"! Here, you know you are in for trouble when this film is meant as a DVD sequel, of sorts, to an Eddie Murphy comedy--a man whose taste in film projects in recent years has also been baffling to say the least! Both men play the same character, Charlie Hinton, and I guess we are to assume he's been through a major accident and massive plastic surgery between films--only this would explain how much Charlie has changed!
So why would I choose to watch a film that from all appearances will be crap? After all, in addition to the down and out Gooding, the film also has the distinction of being on IMDb's Bottom 100 list--the 100 lowest rated films with at least 1500 ratings. Well, by this point, I've done over 8000 reviews and I've gotten bored. After watching a lot of foreign, art and independent films, I have recently decided to try watching the very worst there is to offer as a change of pace! I've already seen 41 of the 50 worst films from the Harry Medved book ("The Fifty Worst Films of All Time") and since the other 9 just don't seem to be available, I'm now working on IMDb's list. This particular film is about the 55th film from this list I have seen. Wow, am I a glutton for punishment!! But also, I like laughing at the ineptness of many of these films--they often really are unintentionally funny. Of course, occasionally they are just horrible...period.
The film begins with a Black actor and a White actor (just like in "Daddy Day Care"--just with different actors). They are trying to find the perfect summer day camp experience for their kids. They hit upon the lame idea of re-opening the camp that they'd gone to as kids--as it's bankrupt and COULD be run successfully if they use their "Daddy Day Care" method they used in the last film.
As for the camp, the kids and their parents are all kooky characters (or is it 'caricatures'?. Of course, things soon completely fall apart at first and things look dire for the future of the camp--especially when the folks at Camp Canola (who bear a lot of similarity to the folks at Cobra Kai) try to put them out of business and buy their land. But, given that this is a Hollywood film, you can safely assume that against all odds, everything will magically work out by the end of the movie. So what is their secret for making it all work? Charlie brings in his drill sergeant-like father, the Colonel, to help run things--since he is an organized man of action. And, of course, there is the obligatory sports competition between the nice camp and the evil one.
Overall, the film isn't quite as bad as you might think, though it's all formulaic and predictable and has every cliché this sort of film could possibly have. Now I am not saying it's good--but it's also pretty harmless entertainment for kids. However, I can't imagine teens or parents watching this poorly written fluff and actually enjoying it because the writing is amazingly broad and the humor awfully dim.
