Superdad

Bob Crane, Kurt Russell and a host of overaged stable-players from the Disney studios struggle to inject some life into flaccid farce about a middle-aged California businessman who schemes to separate his college-age daughter from her beach-bum friends. A continuation of the generation-gap ideas introduced earlier in films such as "Take Her, She's Mine" and "The Impossible Years"--this time, however, without the political activism. Director Vincent McEveety, working from a script by his uncle, Joseph L. McEveety (also from Disney's stable), eschews any meaningful underpinnings for the sake of yahoo laughs, such as Crane attempting to water-ski (the gang records Dad's antics with a home-movie camera for posterity, managing to capture his clumsy moves from an array of different angles!). What can you say about a Disney picture the company itself didn't want to release? Crane, at this point in his career, had developed a permanent bitter scowl on his face. His concerns about his daughter are understandable at first (and rather trenchant), but the McEveetys are too interested in maintaining the comic chaos, to which Crane's unflappable persona isn't well-suited. *1/2 from ****