Today’s quick review: Carpool. On the day of an important presentation, Daniel Miller (David Paymer), an uptight ad executive, has to drive his children and their carpool buddies to school for his sick wife. Already running late, Daniel’s day takes a turn for the worse when Franklin (Tom Arnold), an amiable robber trying to save his family carnival, takes Daniel and the kids hostage and uses their minivan as his getaway vehicle.
Carpool is a family comedy that pairs a hard-working father with a laid-back kidnapper. The movie aims low and hits its target. The jokes are cheap and kid-friendly, the acting is over-the-top, and the zany tone comes as much from the soundtrack as anything happening onscreen. The protracted minivan chase does give the film a light dusting of action, and the film does have a reasonable, if predictable, arc for its characters.
But none of these elements are enough to make Carpool a good movie. The jokes are at best amusing and at worst irritating. On the whole the comedy is passable, but even a mild dislike of David Paymer or Tom Arnold will make the movie insufferable. The characters are thin cutouts and no staying power. The frenetic soundtrack belies the mundaneness of even the exciting parts of the story, and the whole film seems dated, tied too closely to the 90s.
Whether you should watch Carpool depends on how strict you are with your comedy. A viewer with lax standards and a hankering for 90s-style kids’ comedy might have a fun, if insubstantial, time. But most viewers would be better off with one of the many other comedies that scratch the same itch, such as Mousehunt, Daddy Day Care, or Jingle All the Way among kids’ comedies and Major League or Rat Race as more mature offerings.
4.9 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 5.5 for passable humor that never amounts to anything more.