treykrumel
this is a good movie for kid and all ages pretty much for the most part the writing is OK the dialogue is good and the pilot is good and everything else is good I don't get why people hate its this movie just their opinion if you like this movie good for you but if you don't that's OK too.
wrightiswright
Leaving aside Bill Cosby's recent run-ins the with the law, I must say I've never found him the least bit amusing. Maybe it's an American 'thing' mixing slapstick, sentimentality and someone talking like they have a mouth full of toilet paper. Who knows... But for whatever reason, he was the highest actor on American TV for years, and was one of the first true black superstars of the media age. You may wonder why these impressive credentials didn't help him develop a more lucrative movie career... Until you sit through something as terrible as 'Ghost Dad', of course.Dear oh dear, what WERE his agent and him thinking when they flicked through THIS script and decided it would be worth making? Having already starred in a string of flops at the cinema, Cosby NEEDED this, as a last throw of the dice, to be a hit. Needless to say... He came up snake eyes, and he never did have the popularity on the big screen he enjoyed on the far smaller one. Not a great loss, in my view.To start with, his character in the movie is HORRIBLE. He spends all his time at work (to the extent where he reads bedtime stories for his youngest on cassette, forgets all their birthdays and can't even remember each child's name...) so we instantly hate him off the bat. When he DOES join the regions of the undead, the director seems to make up the rules for if he can be seen in daylight, whether he can touch solid objects or not and what kind of powers he has as a spook as he goes along. There is NO consistency here... Aside from the dreadful attempts at comedy and the non-performances from all involved.And just when you think things couldn't get ANY worse... It pulls out the most pathetic deus ex machina of an ending you'll EVER likely see. How the screenwriter scribbled this crap down with a straight face I'll never know. At least he probably laughed more than the poor, poor audience. This is truly a film as dead on arrival as it's protagonist... The difference no-one would try to bring it back from the afterlife. 2/10
JohnHowardReid
I don't read reviews before I see a movie, as I don't wish to cloud my own response and my own judgments with what other critics may think or not think. So I was totally surprised to find that this film received such unenthusiastic reviews. To my mind, Bill Cosby gave an absolutely magnificent performance in the very difficult main role in which it was imperative the actor succeed in making the unbelievable totally believable (which Cosby did, not matter how bizarre the obstacles he was confronted with). I thought the movie an almost perfect spoof of such films as Danny Kaye's "Wonder Man" (1945), brilliantly updating the events to a contemporary setting and changing its comic thrust to big business rather than organized crime. Director Sidney Poitier not only coaxed perfect performances from his large cast of interesting players, including Raynor Scheine as the cab driver – a real weirdo if ever there was one – and Ian Bannen as the paranormal expert, plus Kimberly Russell as Cosby's wife, but he was able to marshal a huge team of experts in Hollywood wizardry to help him produce an amusingly relevant and super-fascinating movie that is not only a joy to watch and fun to listen to, but reasonably believable once you accept and get caught up in its initial premise.
ndgrad71
Okay, yes it has an implausible plot and the story line is totally cheesy. Having said that, however,it's also a very cute movie with a nice lesson in it. I've noticed that some of the other reviewers seem disappointed that this movie isn't an intellectual marvel. It's not meant to be. Sometimes movies are just supposed to be entertaining without having to be analyzed. This is one of those movies. Bill Cosby is as usual a comedic genius. I never get tired of watching him because he plays the father role very well. The supporting child actors are cute, most especially the youngest daughter. This movie is a good one for family viewing. I suggest you at least rent it, pop some popcorn, and sit with the family and enjoy it.
AD
