Early on in the production of 'Daddy's Home 2' there were rumours flying around that this one would start off where the first one finished with John Cena being the main antagonist of the film, and I thought surely they wouldn't go down that route. John Cena has the charisma of a wet sandbag. Plus it would take away from the main selling point these films have which is the chemistry between Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell. While he does play a larger part in this film than in the first, he is far from a lead actor in it luckily. They made a wise choice on that front.
They did though decide to add Mel Gibson and John Lithgow into the mix and I love this decision. Both were ideally cast (I may have preferred Chevy Chase in Lithgow's role fractionally but I'm okay with the choice they made) and nailed their roles. Gibson in particular is possibly the highlight of the film. It's so refreshing to see him acting in a comedy again because he is a very funny man when he wants to be.
The writing lets the film down in places. There are some lazy jokes and scenes where it's quite hard to understand what exactly they were going for. The chemistry between Ferrell and Wahlberg still isn't quite perfected in these films either. They nailed it in 'The Other Guys' but not quite in either of these films. The real surprise in this film though is just how funny the child actors turned out to be. They were funnier than the adults far more often than they were entitled to be. A very pleasant element to the film. All up the film is probably about on par with the original. It plays it surprisingly safe for the most part and it will be hard to seperate the two films in my mind a few years down the track I suspect. Could have been better, could have been worse.
They did though decide to add Mel Gibson and John Lithgow into the mix and I love this decision. Both were ideally cast (I may have preferred Chevy Chase in Lithgow's role fractionally but I'm okay with the choice they made) and nailed their roles. Gibson in particular is possibly the highlight of the film. It's so refreshing to see him acting in a comedy again because he is a very funny man when he wants to be.
The writing lets the film down in places. There are some lazy jokes and scenes where it's quite hard to understand what exactly they were going for. The chemistry between Ferrell and Wahlberg still isn't quite perfected in these films either. They nailed it in 'The Other Guys' but not quite in either of these films. The real surprise in this film though is just how funny the child actors turned out to be. They were funnier than the adults far more often than they were entitled to be. A very pleasant element to the film. All up the film is probably about on par with the original. It plays it surprisingly safe for the most part and it will be hard to seperate the two films in my mind a few years down the track I suspect. Could have been better, could have been worse.