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Parents' Guide to

Daddy Day Care

By Nell Minow, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 8+

Slapstick comedy is filled with potty humor, pratfalls.

Movie PG 2003 90 minutes
Daddy Day Care Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

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age 7+

Based on 12 parent reviews

Faith L.
Faith L. Adult
November 4, 2020
age 6+

Amazing!

I think it is great I highly recommend it it's a great and funny movie for kids me and my husband watched it before we Watch it before and we cracked up we loved it and when we watched it as a family we were all cracking up. Are daughter sat though surprisingly and at the end she said she loved it which hardly ever happends ever ! over all I think it is a great movie with great messages and great roll models!

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
1 person found this helpful.
The_Reviewer
The_Reviewer Adult
March 14, 2019
age 10+

Appropriate for the Mature Kids

Parents need to know that this is about a man (played by Eddie Murphy the comedian) who is losing money and has to pay for his house. He sets up a Day Care for young children - which are a big handful! The language, I would rate it about 3 bars instead of 2. Children do use mild words, like "This cereal sucks!" They turn Veggie-O's into "Veggie-Blows.) Profanity is also used. Murphy's character says "S--t" when they are being chased by the police. He tries to spell "f--k" to fool his younger son, but his wife stops him. That's about it.

This title has:

Too much swearing
1 person found this helpful.
See all 12 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Eddie Murphy plays Charlie, who loves his wife, Kim (Regina King), and 4-year-old son, Ben, but has trouble finding time for them due to a high-pressure job in marketing. When his new product, breakfast cereal made from vegetables, is a flop, Charlie and his friend Phil (Jeff Garlin) are laid off. Kim has just started working, so Charlie stays home with Ben. The only preschool in town is the snooty Chamberlin Academy, where children in prep-school uniforms study Freud, Portuguese, and SAT vocabulary words. It is run by mean Ms. Harridan (Anjelica Huston). When Charlie and Phil can't find new jobs, they decide to start Daddy Day Care at Charlie's house.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (12 ):
Kids say (41 ):

DADDY DAY CARE is the sort of movie that Hollywood can churn out in its collective sleep and audiences can watch without really waking up. It's as bland and predicable as a package of Kraft macaroni and cheese but likely to please the same target audience. Its plot gives us 20 minutes for the setup, 30 minutes for everything to go wrong, and 30 minutes for Charlie and Phil to clean up their act and for the bad guys to almost win and then lose, with a few minutes for "what really matters in life is family" lessons along the way. They throw in some diaper humor for those in the audience most recently involved with potty training, some lite rock classics, and an appearance by an aging rock band (Cheap Trick) to make the parents in the audience feel hip, and then of course there are the bloopers and outtakes during the credits.

The result is a movie that is undistinguished and undistinguishable but not too awful. It sags here and there but picks up whenever Steve Zahn appears as an emergency recruit who may be a little spacey (in more senses than one) but who has knack for communicating with kids. But no one else seems to be trying very hard, including the people who spelled Anjelica Houston's name wrong in the credits (or maybe she just didn't want her real name on this movie).

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about how Charlie learned about what was important to him and how members of their own families show each other that family comes first.

  • This movie shows kids and adults watching the Three Stooges, and the movie itself shows adults and kids performing similar comedic pratfalls: kicking, falling, making wacky sound effects. What are some other examples of movies and TV shows in which characters fall down and get hurt for comedic effect?

  • How does this movie show the difficulties families face when one of the parents loses his or her job?

Movie Details

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