YMMV / Daddy Day Care

• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During the scene where the kids are on a sugar rush, Tony suddendly gains Motion Blur when he runs in one shot. It could be Rule of Cool, but is still out of place and is never brought up again, especially after Tony stops wearing his Flash costume for the rest of the movie.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • Ben gradually going from being shy around the other kids to enjoying playing with his new friends.
  • In one scene where Flash/Tony has gone missing, the grown-ups frantically search the house high and low. When they find his discarded Flash costume, they think it means he's gone missing. But then, they find an unfamiliar child casually eating cookies in his underwear, who turns out to be Tony. When they wonder why he's not in his Flash costume, he tells them he no longer wants to be Flash so much as he wants to be Tony. Rather proud of he's left his phase, Charlie and the others are actually moved to see Tony's content with being a kid.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Eddie Murphy himself has 10 children, several of them born after this movie came out, to the point where he roasted Bill Cosby in a Saturday Night Live monologue that he had become "America's Dad" now. While a lot of Murphy's comedies in the 2000s were panned, it's obvious that he didn't do this one just for the paycheck.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The man from Child Services is asked to entertain the kids with a puppet show while the dads search for Tony/Flash. The "puppets" being used are action figures of Spock and Uhura and they end up kissing at the end of the improvised puppet show.
  • Marvin's correction on Tony's The Flash as Wally West became more funny now that Barry Allen had brought back to DC Universe and retook his identity from Wally West.
  • One of the children solely speaking in Klingon became more into reality with an attempt by a father to make his son a native speaker of said language.
• Moe: All of the kids, but Ben is just beyond precious.
• Small Reference Pools: In-Universe, Tony imagined himself as The Flash but he seems to based his villains from other DC Universe heroes, which Marvin—a person with more knowledge in pop culture— proceed to correct him and even explained to him about his arch-nemesis.
• Tear Jerker: The scene where Charlie has to explain to Ben that he's shutting down Daddy Day Care and returning to his old job, telling Ben that he'll be making more money and can buy him more toys. Ben then offers to sell all his toys so Charlie doesn't need money.
  • Also borders on poignantly heartwarming when one realizes Ben's basically telling his father he's more important to him than all the toys he owns. It's not every child who voices they love their parent this much.
• Values Dissonance: In one scene, Charlie and Phil are Mistaken for Gay by some mothers, and their choice of words makes things worse, with the mothers being visibly uncomfortable. While that humor might have been acceptable in 2003, it comes off as incredibly homophobic by today's standards.
• The Woobie: Ben. At the beginning of the film, he's sad because he barely gets to see Charlie. Then when Charlie gets laid off, he misses his mother Kim. Then when Daddy Day Care begins, he distances himself from the other kids and is a bit sad that Charlie can't play with him as much. Then when he finally starts making friends and adjusting to things, Charlie has to close the Day Care and return to his old job. It's not until Charlie resurrects Daddy Day Care that things finally work out for the little guy.