For those still looking forward to Christmas, know that this week's forced Holiday pabulum, Daddy's Home 2 is proof that we've all been naughty this year and you should probably batten down the hatches before Santa Claus comes to your home and s**ts underneath your tree. This movie is a horrid, rage-inducing, ill-conceived exercise in dead-horse beating that's so on-its-face repulsive, that its obligatory last act koombaya resembles an upside-down diaper that's been left on someone's windshield.
Daddy's Home 2 takes the broadly-drawn animosities of the first film and gives them a wider birth as Markie Mark and Wimpy Willy are visited by their like-minded fathers played by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow for Christmas. Looking for a way to get underneath everyone's skin, just because, Mel Gibson AirB&B's a rustic snow-swept cabin and eggs everyone into a blended family blowout. As you would expect the movie then devolves into clichéd comedic hijinks not funny since the Reagan Era to relay a message (I guess) not relevant since Archie Bunker was still on TV.
On its face, this movie has every glaring, stupid, simpering problem the first one did. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are still cardboard jumbles of male insecurity and chauvinism stuck in an ever-escalating game of one-upsmanship. The kids are still lingering afterthoughts who chime in only when the plot needs a shift in tone. The story itself still plays out like a tour of loosely connected contrivances laboring to maintain a PG-13 rating and Linda Cardellini still plays a feckless, inconsequential support figure. Admittedly, Cardellini does have a tiny bit more to do here but that comes at the expense of having her play opposite the wooden Alessandra Ambrosio – ouch.
What makes this movie so much worse however is the inclusion of Mel Gibson's character which somehow takes the tired affectations of Wahlberg's Dusty and strips them of everything resembling an adult. The actor may be pushing sixty-two but Gibson's toxic grandpa (or padre as he insists on calling himself) is a terror on the level of The Problem Child (1990). Never has there been a more irredeemably terrible character worthy of being pushed out onto an ice flow. Yet, the movie somehow thinks Dusty and Brad (Ferrell) are the ones that need to be emasculated, electrocuted and pelted with snowballs. Gibson does get shot once - so that's nice.
The film's big climax takes place in a movie theater. An interesting choice since it only serves to highlight the woeful fact that if you've gotten this far without walking out, you're definitely won't get your money back. The movie then ends in a syrupy sweet crescendo of sing-songy holiday cheer so forced it should be arrested for assault. The Song "Do They Know It's Christmas" was never played on heavy rotation at my house during the holidays, but after watching this monstrosity, I wanted to buy the record just so I have something physical to destroy. Maybe if I'm good all next year, I can treat myself to skeet shooting the Blu-ray of this derelict piece of bat droppings instead. Yes, I'll probably ask Santa for that.
Daddy's Home 2 takes the broadly-drawn animosities of the first film and gives them a wider birth as Markie Mark and Wimpy Willy are visited by their like-minded fathers played by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow for Christmas. Looking for a way to get underneath everyone's skin, just because, Mel Gibson AirB&B's a rustic snow-swept cabin and eggs everyone into a blended family blowout. As you would expect the movie then devolves into clichéd comedic hijinks not funny since the Reagan Era to relay a message (I guess) not relevant since Archie Bunker was still on TV.
On its face, this movie has every glaring, stupid, simpering problem the first one did. Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are still cardboard jumbles of male insecurity and chauvinism stuck in an ever-escalating game of one-upsmanship. The kids are still lingering afterthoughts who chime in only when the plot needs a shift in tone. The story itself still plays out like a tour of loosely connected contrivances laboring to maintain a PG-13 rating and Linda Cardellini still plays a feckless, inconsequential support figure. Admittedly, Cardellini does have a tiny bit more to do here but that comes at the expense of having her play opposite the wooden Alessandra Ambrosio – ouch.
What makes this movie so much worse however is the inclusion of Mel Gibson's character which somehow takes the tired affectations of Wahlberg's Dusty and strips them of everything resembling an adult. The actor may be pushing sixty-two but Gibson's toxic grandpa (or padre as he insists on calling himself) is a terror on the level of The Problem Child (1990). Never has there been a more irredeemably terrible character worthy of being pushed out onto an ice flow. Yet, the movie somehow thinks Dusty and Brad (Ferrell) are the ones that need to be emasculated, electrocuted and pelted with snowballs. Gibson does get shot once - so that's nice.
The film's big climax takes place in a movie theater. An interesting choice since it only serves to highlight the woeful fact that if you've gotten this far without walking out, you're definitely won't get your money back. The movie then ends in a syrupy sweet crescendo of sing-songy holiday cheer so forced it should be arrested for assault. The Song "Do They Know It's Christmas" was never played on heavy rotation at my house during the holidays, but after watching this monstrosity, I wanted to buy the record just so I have something physical to destroy. Maybe if I'm good all next year, I can treat myself to skeet shooting the Blu-ray of this derelict piece of bat droppings instead. Yes, I'll probably ask Santa for that.