Daddy Day Camp

This topic contains:

• overall comments and recommendations
• details about Daddy Day Camp's classification and consumer advice lines
• a review of Daddy Day Camp completed by Young Media Australia (YMA) on 4 December 2007.

Overall comments and recommendations

About the movie

This section contains details about the movie, including its classification by the Office of Film and Literature Classification (OFLC) and the associated consumer advice lines.

YMA review

This review of the movie Daddy Day Camp contains the following information:

• a synopsis of the story
• themes
• use of violence
• material that may scare children
• product placement
• sexual references
• nudity and sexual activity
• use of substances
• coarse language
• the movie's message

A synopsis of the story

Charlie Hinton (Cuba Gooding Jr) and Phil Ryerson (Paul Rae) run a successful day care service, which their now 7 year old sons have attended. Both dads are reluctant for their sons to attend summer camp due to their own bad experiences of camp when growing up. For Charlie it reminds him of his loss in the camp Olympiad baton relay, and in particular, his memory of having failed in front of his military father (Richard Gant).

Themes

Children and adolescents may react adversely at different ages to themes of crime, suicide, drug and alcohol dependence, death, serious illness, family breakdown, death or separation from a parent, animal distress or cruelty to animals, children as victims, natural disasters and racism. Occasionally reviews may also signal themes that some parents may simply wish to know about.

Bullying; cheating

Use of violence

Research shows that children are at risk of learning that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution when violence is glamourised, performed by an attractive hero, successful, has few real life consequences, is set in a comic context and / or is mostly perpetrated by male characters with female victims, or by one race against another.

Repeated exposure to violent content can reinforce the message that violence is an acceptable means of conflict resolution. Repeated exposure also increases the risks that children will become desensitised to the use of violence in real life or develop an exaggerated view about the prevalence and likelihood of violence in their own world.

There is some violence in this movie including:

• Phil gets punched in the groin.
• During a Camp Canola raid, all the children get ‘paintballed’ and the adults get hit, punched or tied up in nets.
• During the Olympiad, Lance gets kicked in the shins

Material that may scare children

Under eight

Children under eight are most likely to be frightened by scary visual images, such as monsters, physical transformations, the death of a parent or child abandoned or separated from parents, children or animals being hurt or threatened and / or natural disasters.

In addition to the above-mentioned violent scenes, there are some scenes in this movie that could scare or disturb children aged five to eight, including the following:

• The bus carrying the children to Day Camp has a brake failure and it crashes into the Driftwood Day Camp offices. There is a small explosion. No one is seriously hurt in the accident. The scene is portrayed as humorous.
• Charlie falls through a roof while fixing shingles. He is not injured.
• During an archery exercise, Mullet (one of the children) attempts to shoot a rabbit with his arrow. When Charlie goes to move the rabbit, he unwittingly finds himself the target instead. He escapes uninjured from a barrage of arrows.
• Billy, the camp bully, bullies younger children
• During a Camp Canola raid, the Camp Driftwood kids are surrounded by quad bikes and appear frightened by the experience.
• Ben, Charlie’s son, goes missing from the campsite at night and all the campers go in search of him. His father appears very worried. Ben is found uninjured and not sure what all the fuss is about.
• Phil sits on the methane rich toilet, and when he lights a match to see what is going on, it sets off a huge explosion. He emerges from the remains of the toilet, singed and soiled, but uninjured.
• Charlie uses a circular saw to cut wood. A piece flies off and hits Phil in the abdomen. He appears hurt but recovers quickly.

Aged eight to thirteen

Children aged eight to thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic threats and dangers, violence or threat of violence and / or stories in which children are hurt or threatened.

Younger children in this age group may also be disturbed by some of the scenes described above.

Over the age of thirteen

Children over the age of thirteen are most likely to be frightened by realistic physical harm or threats, molestation or sexual assault and / or threats from aliens or the occult.

Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this film.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie:

• VANS
• Puma
• Superball

Sexual references

None of concern

Nudity and sexual activity

None of concern

Use of substances

None of concern

Coarse language

There are some coarse language and put downs in this movie, including:

• snot-nosed little brat
• what the heck
• crap-hole
• butthead
• dork
• idiots
• pooping my shorts
• shut up
• moron

The movie's message

Daddy Day Camp is a light weight family comedy and is a sequel to Daddy Day Care. Children will enjoy the farcical physical comedy and seeing children outsmart adults. Adolescents and adults may find the humour a little simplistic, but the cast are engaging and mostly likeable.

Values in this movie that parents may wish to reinforce with their children include:

• teamwork and cooperation
• forgiveness
• focusing on people’s strengths, while acknowledging we all have flaws
• playing fair

This movie could also give parents the opportunity to discuss with their children attitudes and behaviours, and their real-life consequences, such as

• poor sportsmanship
• winning at any cost and cheating
• bullying
• stealing