Daddy Day Camp Review

Published by Jeff Leins on: August 13th, 2007

Daddy Day Camp is arguably the worst movie I’ve ever seen.

Cuba Gooding Jr. replaced Eddie Murphy in the lead role, which speaks volumes about the state of Junior’s career. Murphy, if you’ve been following the news, just learned he’s the dad of Scary Spice’s kid. So I guess he has his own daddy problems at the moment. Cuba won an Oscar at one point and is probably one of the worst actors to receive one. But this is clearly a case where you’re replacing one overrated actor with another one as the series goes from bad to worse.

It was directed by Fred Savage. Yeah, the kid from “The Wonder Years.” Not only that, but this is his first big screen feature. It shows.

A 2% on Rotten Tomatoes means this is the worst-reviewed film of the year so far and top 10 worst movies of all time in the history of the website.

I admit that I’m not the intended audience for this schlock, but I watched the trailer and I just about declared jihad on TriStar. “But you hate the outdoors,” his wife tells him. Does he. “What could go wrong?” the trailer says. Here come the hijnks!

Since almost all of the critics have taken this opportunity to trot out their best review insults, I’ll take this in a different direction. I’m going to write a list of things I expect to roll my eyes at, then I’ll compare notes after. I’m going to base this solely on the inevitable clichés and its theatrical trailer, which was mind numbingly bad already.

Here’s the pre-viewing list:
1. The old fixer-upper montage. Someone gets hurt.
2. Poison ivy/bee sting/allergic reaction gag. Hilarity ensues.
3. A rival camp, complete with cross-camp challenge, which can only result in everyone learning a valuable lesson.
4. An evil buyer who wants to bulldoze the camp, and hopefully takes Cuba Gooding with it.
5. Bad camp songs.
6. A wacky animal attack/invasion. I’m crossing my fingers for a mauling.
7. Camp activities that put the counselors in danger. We saw archery in the trailer, but I bet the crazy antics don’t stop there. I bet we get to see knot-tying put to some sort of silly bondage joke. Counselor gets tied up with the new knot knowledge. Bondage is fun for the whole family.
8. Bathroom humor. Fart jokes aplenty.
9. A Cuba Gooding meltdown when things are at the peak of disaster, reminiscent of his over-the-top Oscar celebration.
10. A diverse group of campers that everyone can approve of.

And here is the list after watching this crap. At least I’m getting paid while watching this.
1. Yup. Montage. Not even 15 minutes in. The fat guy gets a board in his stomach. Sigh.
2. Poison Ivy and a poison ivy infection. Check. Bee swarm they have to run from. Check.
3. Rival camp. Absolutely. But here’s the twist. The head of THAT camp wants to expand onto their camp. Who saw that coming? He’s played by Lochlyn Munro, who has been rightfully typecast as an asshole. And not only is there an “inter-camp challenge,” but the two go to war with each other.
4. (see three)
5. Brief clip of a fat man with a guitar around a campfire.
6. Skunk.
7. A counselor gets tied up immediately after they learn how to tie knots. I might be a genius. But wait, then this fat mess (pictured right) gets tied up and whipped by the rival camp. Bonus.
8. Holy shit there are a lot of poop, fart, piss, and vomit jokes.
9. Just one? Try a few.
10. A cute much-desired girl, a black kid, a nerd, a bully, and a redneck kid equipped with giant mullet. None of them interesting.

10/10. I swear I didn’t cheat. Not only did this movie prove to be exceptionally bad, but its also very predictable.

One thing I didn’t see coming was the bus full of kids crashing into the side of a building and fire spewing everywhere. That’s supposed to be funny?

There is nothing redeemable about this movie. It’s not a good kids flick. It’s not funny. And it’s certainly not original. Every copy should be burned in a campfire immediately.

.5 out of five.