Margaret Avery

(On Cable TV, June 2019) There is a specific cinematographic flatness to many low-budget movies that’s easy to identify, and it’s perhaps fortunate that Grand-Daddy Day Care shows it from its earliest moments—just so we know what we’re getting into. Much of the film is as bland as its presentation—with a blocked novelist turning to creating a daycare for seniors as a way to make money, you can predict that the film won’t be a fount of wit and it’s not. I only watched the film for Danny Trejo, and he does impress in a slightly more serious role than usual, even in keeping with his usual persona. Alas, he’s almost entirely the sole impressive spot—While it’s great to see Margaret Avery in another role, the other actors aren’t given much to do and Reno Wilson seems stuck doing a sedated Kevin Hart impression. It’s not much to go on, and the rest of the film moves from one familiar scenario to another, even as it’s trying to pretend that everything is funnier with seniors in the lead roles. By the time we’re breaking a friend out of a retirement home with the heroes dressed as clowns, we’re stuck with the film we’ve chosen to watch. Amazingly enough, this is explicitly spun off from the Eddie Murphy Daddy Day Care movies, something that only affects a small (but perhaps funniest) scene in the film. While not eye-screamingly awful, Grand-Daddy Day Care isn’t much to contemplate. I’d be surprised if it even becomes more than a very forgettable footnote in Trejo’s filmography.