 Pity Eddie Murphy. He's being sent in this week to challenge 20th Century Fox's X2: X-Men United with a movie bearing the wimpy title Daddy Day Care. Guess who the box-office analysts think will come out ahead. The Murphy movie is not expected to fizzle, however, given the fact that it is being launched in more than 3,200 theaters and, since it's only half the length of X2, can be shown many more times. All of that, however, may be offset by generally dreadful reviews of the movie by the nation's film critics. Manohla Dargis's in the Los Angeles Times sets the theme of most of them: "Every so often a comedy comes along that's so flat, pointless and grimly unfunny that you have to ask yourself: What in the world happened to Eddie Murphy's career?" John Anderson's in Newsday is one invective rant: "Those wishing to contribute to the ongoing prosperity of a shamefully wasted natural resource will find a mortified movie badly in need of potty training and a star who has attained the American Dream of doing the least work for the most amount of money," he writes. Elizabeth Weitzman's in the New York Daily News is hardly less berating: "One would think, after the disastrous failings of I Spy and The Adventures of Pluto Nash, that Murphy would try a little harder. Or choose projects more carefully. Or at least show his audience -- especially the little ones -- a little respect," she comments, adding: "This romper-room nonromp would shrivel the brain cells of a 4-year-old." Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times calls it "a woeful miscalculation, a film so wrong-headed audiences will be more appalled than amused." Other reviews are not quite so toxic, but few find much to like about the movie. Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer writes, for example: "Daddy Day Care deserves faint praise for being a movie that parents can see with their children. There are worse ways of spending an afternoon. Like giving a birthday party for 20 toddlers on chocolate highs and running out of scheduled activities after 20 minutes." Joe Morgenstern in the Wall Street Journal observes that Murphy shows "restraint" in the movie, especially in his relationship with the kid stars. "But restraint is the last thing we want from a comic of his caliber. It's no fun at all," he concludes. And Wesley Morris gives the film this left-handed compliment: "The movie doesn't stink that bad, though." |
