Blu-ray Review: Daddy Day Camp

Daddy Day Camp

Blu-ray Review
Sony Pictures
Release: January 29, 2008
Run Time: 89 Minutes
Rating: PG

Daddy Day Camp is the sequel to Daddy Day Care and is a film I was not too high on going in right from the start. Geoff Rodkey, J. David Stem, and David N. Weiss bring s the script of Daddy Day Camp. They have worked on Daddy Day Care, RV, Are We There Yet, as well as other similar films.

Fred Savage makes his feature-film directorial debut with this sequel to Daddy Day Care.

Daddy Day Camp stars the Academy Award-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. The film features a great deal of sub-par gross humor which kids may either love, or hate. Either way for a family film there sure are more than your fare share of fart jokes and such. A perfect example would be when Phil, in the film, uses a lighter while in the outhouse, and an explosion takes place.

Cuba Gooding Jr. plays Charlie Hinton while Paul Rae plays Phil Ryerson. They are trying to build on the success of Daddy Day Care and want to make day camps to save a camp called Camp Driftwood. They go up against rival camps throughout the film. The film tries to preach important thing such as working together in teams, giving kids hope and self-esteem, etc. The problem though is that it is all extremely predictable and as stated above, the jokes and such are far from anything which will teach solid lessons to kids viewing. They may not even find it funny.

The video quality for Daddy Day Camp is much better than the actual film is. The video is presented in 1080p and comes across extremely clear. The film is presented in 1.85:1 and looks absolutely crisp and extremely colorful. The great use of color saturation gives the film a lot of pop, and strong black levels also aid it greatly. For such a poor film, this is definitely a great video transfer to Blu-ray.

The audio is also very well done as it is presented in English, Spanish, or French Dolby TrueHD 5.1 There is also a Portuguese and Thai 5.1 track. Basically there has to be a language here you can understand. With that said the audio sounds great, just as good and impressive as the video is as the center channel is used for some very crisp dialogue, while the sound effects ring well in the rear channels and subwoofer.

The extras for this release are severely lacking as there is only a short making-of-feature which is only mildly entertaining, as well as just a simple quiz with a freeze-frame background, nothing impressive at all.

Daddy Day Camp is definitely a sub-par film as the comedy does not work, nor does the cast. The comedy feels extremely forced and the story is very shallow, to the point where it is unlikely kids will even get any enjoyment out of it. The video and audio quality saves it a bit, but it still can’t take away from the bad film. If you want some family entertainment, you can do much better on Blu-ray than Daddy Day Camp.

Film: 5.5 A terrible film which forces comedic moments and works every cliché possible. Very disappointing.

Video: 8.5 The video is actually great looking with solid color saturation, black levels, etc.

Audio: 8.5 A great audio mix with crystal clear dialogue and sound effects.

Special Features: 3.0 The short making-of feature and quiz are all you really get here.

Final Score: 6.0

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Interested in picking up this release? Head over to Amazon at the link here - Daddy Day Camp [Blu-ray]