In theaters

DADDY DAY CARE, directed by Steve Carr, written by Geoff Rodkey, 93 minutes, rated PG.

The real reason to see the new comedy “Daddy Day Care” isn’t to watch the film’s little darlings destroy the sets, which they do, or even to listen to their uncontrollable fits of flatulence, no matter how appealing that sounds, but to see the computer-animated short that precedes the film.

It’s called “Early Bloomer,” and it’s terrific, a coming-of-age tale from the team that created the Academy Award-winning short “The ChubbChubbs!” With its gorgeous animation, buoyant score and ingenious storyline of a chubby tadpole ostracized by his peers because of his new, awkward-looking legs, the film mines more humor, wit, charm and creativity in five minutes than “Daddy Day Care” musters in 93.

As directed by Steve Carr (“Dr. Dolittle 2”) from a script by Geoff Rodkey, “Daddy Day Care” is a slight, dumbed-down comedy for kids, insulting them with the sort of formulaic dreck that’s so uninspired and base, those tots who toss their diapers at the screen shouldn’t just be forgiven, but commended.

The movie stars Eddie Murphy as Charlie Hinton, a recently fired ad executive who, along with his out-of-work pal Phil (Jeff Garlin), decides to fill a neighborhood niche by turning his home into a day care.

They call it Daddy Day Care, and while Charlie’s wife, Kim (Regina King), offers only slim support, their shy son, Ben (Khamani Griffin), couldn’t be more happy. Now, he’ll be able to spend quality time with his dad, not to mention 14 other kids, all of whom look as if they were plucked from a heady dream by Anne Geddes and raised by none other than Dr. Spock.

With the day care’s popularity skyrocketing – single, attractive, well-to-do mothers love it – trouble comes from the competition, specifically in the brittle form of Miss Harridan (Anjelica Huston), a squinting dominatrix whose pricey Chapman Academy is losing business to these pesky stay-at-home dads.

Will Miss Harridan thwart Charlie, Phil and their flighty sidekick, Marvin (Steve Zhan), from staying in business? Will her evil, plotting ways undo their day care? Or will the real undoing come from Charlie and Phil, who are eventually lured back to their old jobs of shucking that other enemy, sugary cereal?

In the end, it doesn’t matter – the film is so carefully stacked with its army of cliches, even the bumbling tadpole in “Early Bloomer” could figure out how it ends. But what does matter, at least for Murphy, is that “Daddy Day Care” continues the decline of his once formidable career, which jumped off a cliff with “Dr. Dolittle 2” and has been plummeting ever since with such stinkers as “Showtime,” “The Adventures of Pluto Nash,” “I Spy” and now this.

His voice-over work in “Shrek” proves the actor still has the necessary chops to leave a mark onscreen, but in order to leave other marks before his core audience leaves him altogether, he’d better get serious about finding the right script.

Grade: “Daddy Day Care,” D

Grade: “Early Bloomer,” A

On video and DVD

KANDAHAR, written and directed by Mosen Makhmalbaf, 85 minutes, not rated, in English and Farsi with English subtitles.

Mosen Makhmalbaf’s “Kandahar” follows one woman’s journey across the deserts of Iran to the border of Afghanistan.

There, in the now infamous city of Kandahar, Nafas (Nelofer Pazira), an Afghan journalist from Canada, hopes to save her sister’s life before she commits suicide during a pending solar eclipse.

Hindered at every turn by circumstance, bad luck and especially by Taliban rule, which prohibits women from traveling anywhere unescorted by men, Nafas’ three-day quest to beat the clock and rescue her sister is just as harrowing and as dangerous as you might expect.

Inspired by Pazira’s own true story and shot before Sept. 11, 2001, “Kandahar” feels more like a documentary than it does a dramatic feature, which is intentional.

Its substantial power comes not so much from its characters, who are thinly realized by Makhmalbaf’s spare script and sometimes awkwardly portrayed by the film’s nonprofessional actors, but from the haunting images of oppression, famine, fear and suffering that underscore everything.

From its opening shot of legless and one-legged men racing on crutches to the clouds of prosthetic limbs parachuting to the desert floor to the striking image of anonymous Afghan women defiantly applying lipstick and makeup beneath their burqas, “Kandahar” is filled with unforgettable moments.

As poorly dubbed and as crudely edited as it sometimes is, those qualities don’t harm the film as much as give it energy. Indeed, “Kandahar” consistently feels as if it was shot on the fly, which fuels its sense of urgency and deepens its emotional weight.

Grade: A-

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Mondays and Fridays in Style, Thursdays at 5:30 p.m. on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6, and are archived on RottenTomatoes.com. He can be reached at BDNFilm1@aol.com.