Daddy Day Care review

For every Shrek to remind us why Eddie Murphy is still popular, there are too many Daddy Day Care's that raise doubt. Not quite in the embarrassingly awful league of The Adventures Of Pluto Nash, it nevertheless reinforces the fact that picking the right project is not one of Murphy's greatest assets.

In his defence, the concept of two hopelessly inept fathers running a pre-school day care facility has the potential to be funny. What Murphy didn't legislate for is a pedestrian director and an even more leaden script. Screenwriter Geoff Rodkey has nothing more than the premise to offer and apparently no knowledge of what running a day care center is like, while director Steve Carr conducts proceedings in some pristine world that never looks remotely like anything other than a film set.

For a kids' movie, Daddy Day Care plays like My Dinner With Andre. The long and tedious dialogue is guaranteed to try the patience of even those youngsters not afflicted with ADD. And for all the unnecessary scenes, there are awkward jumps of narrative that suggest either the editor was adopting William Burroughs' cut up approach or, in an effort to keep things close to the 90 minute mark, scenes were randomly cut. That last theory might at least explain where all the jokes went, because there are precious few up on the screen.

What is up there is a one-paced Eddie Murphy trying to find humour and heart where there are none. Murphy plays the high-flying marketing executive Charlie Hinton, who along with his colleague Phil (Jeff Garlin, who comes across as a poor man's John Goodman) lose their jobs when their proposal to introduce a healthy kids breakfast cereal gets dropped. Out of work and forced to become stay at home dads, both men hit on the idea of opening up a day care center. Cue scenes of annoying toddlers running rampage while both ill-prepared men rush around behind them hopelessly trying to stem the mayhem.

There's an unconvincing sub-plot involving a rival pre-school run by the fearsome Mrs Harradin (Anjelica Huston). But then everything seems forced and ill conceived. Only the goofy Steve Zahn as the adolescent Melvin operates on a level remotely close to the one required to appeal to kids.

According to the old saying, children should be seen and not heard. Given that Murphy's biggest success in the last few years was as the voice of an animated donkey, unlike children perhaps he should be heard and not seen.