As if the first one wasn't awful enough, along comes "Daddy Day Camp"

What's worse than a listless sequel to a terrible movie? How about a listless sequel with a far less interesting cast than the first film.

That's the case with "Daddy Day Camp," a superfluous follow-up to 2003's wretched Eddie Murphy comedy "Daddy Day Care." With Murphy moving on from his role as Charlie Hinton — a family man who opens a day-care center after getting fired from his job — the new film substitutes down-on-his-luck Oscar-winner Cuba Gooding Jr.

Several other characters are carried over from the first film, but they're also played by different, unfortunately forgettable performers. "Daddy Day Care," obnoxious as it was with its bathroom humor and jokes about male ineptitude, at least co-starred the likes of Steve Zahn, Anjelica Huston, Kevin Nealon, Laura Kightlinger, Jonathan Katz and Jeff Garlin. "Daddy Day Camp" offers Paul Rae ("Coach Carter") and Tamala Jones ("Nora's Hair Salon"), neither of whom can give this lumbering project a lift.

Gooding mugs his way through most of the movie, visibly straining to look involved in a by-the-numbers story in which Charlie and buddy Phil (Rae) decide to buy a dilapidated camp for kids. Despite the site's ruinous condition and the objections of Charlie's wife (Jones), the guys throw caution to the wind. Meanwhile, Charlie's childhood rival (Lochlyn Munro), who owns a nearby, upscale summer camp, is poised to take over the property and bulldoze it.

Everything in the film is predictable. There are the usual comedy mishaps involving suburbanites trying to reckon with the great outdoors. The hopeless, juvenile types attending Charlie's camp are warmed over from a thousand other films. Every individual or relationship conflict is resolved in an inevitable, athletic contest between enemy camps.

One-time child actor Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years") directs "Daddy Day Camp" with a stiff resolve to get the job done without any distracting trace of personal style. The one redeeming element is a warm, very human performance by veteran actor Richard Gant ("Deadwood") as Charlie's father, a military man called in to help save the camp's morale.

If you can stay awake through this perfunctory feature, I tip my hat to you.

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com