Daddy’s Home 2 – Review

Daddy’s Home Two is yet another cringe inducing attempt at the typical Christmas themed comedy for the year, yes, another bad one – and a sequel at that.

Daddy’s Home Two follows the story of a “dad coming home”, in this case, the father of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg’s character’s – starring John Lithgow as the effeminate lovey dovey father and Mel Gibson as tough grungy bachelor, prepare to see tow personalities clash. Yay.

This festive comedy takes us to new lows for Christmas themed films; here I was thinking A Bad Mom’s Christmas (2017) was the worst of it, and don’t get me wrong, it is, but that won’t prevent me from dishing out some Christmas spirit to this unwanted and unneeded sequel. We are treated to a host of stereotypical characters in their simplest form. What can I say? They go on holiday together, argue, events transpire and the movie ends.

Now this “comedy” should be expected to at least dish out a handful of laughs in payment for the ticket price, right? Well yes, it does in a way, there are moments which were marginally funny, nothing too crude but enough to force out a low effort chuckle, however the bulk of the comedy was at the expense of how bad the film was – laughing in those rare moments were possible because the “comedy” was that badly executed, not because it was genuinely funny. To put it simply; Daddy’s Home Two is the torn up wrapping that everyone throws into the jumbo rubbish bag on Christmas morning to never be remembered again.

Range is not the word I would use to describe the performances that the vast majority of actors utilized throughout this film – from our leads like Wahlberg and Ferrell to Gibson and Lithgow – almost all of the performances were baseline and stereotypical, offering little character development. Wahlberg plays the tough guy with a soft spot and adheres to the same formula that he utilized with Ferrell in all their other comedies. Not much here to talk about other than Linda Cardellini, as she provides the only character that isn’t a complete moron.

Structurally this film isn’t messy, it’s just flat out boring and follows the standard Hollywood formula. The camerawork is bland and nothing sticks out as particularly well made, even when it comes to production design. The music tries to honor some festivities and bring out some fun but it just doesn’t meld.

This is a film without strong qualities in any areas in particular. The comedy is weak, the effort is weak, and the only thing that will get people in the cinema to see it is that you don’t need to use the thinky-thinky parts of your brain to understand any piece of comedy here, because the movie will make sure to explain the joke for you. Wrapped in abysmal “comedy” and thrown under the Christmas tree with a side of mindless dialogue – Daddy’s Home Two is the awful Christmas gift of the year – at least you don’t have to pretend to like it.

2.4/10