Mostly naughty, not much hilarity
A Bad Moms Christmas (out of 4) Starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines and Susan Sarandon. Directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore. Opens Nov. 1 at GTA theatres. 111 minutes. 14A
The success last year of Bad Moms made a sequel as inevitable as Christmas overindulgence. The combination of the two may lead to indigestion. A Bad Moms Christmas is less amusing and much cruder than the original movie, which found hilarity and solidarity in a cry of matriarchal exhaustion: “I’m so tired of trying to be the perfect mom.”
The mantra this time is, “Taking Christmas back!” and it just doesn’t have the same ring. This could be the message of any Yuletide film offering.
A more accurate title would be Bad Grandmoms, because returning stressed-out mamas Amy (Mila Kunis), Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) are joined and frequently upstaged by the women playing their naughtier maters: Christine Baranski, Cheryl Hines and Susan Sarandon.
The newcomers get most of the best lines, especially Baranski, Amy’s mother of a mother. She’s determined to turn Christmas into an Olympic sport of excess, her daughter’s modest wishes be damned.
“Too bad you’ve given up on our family’s tradition of winning!” she proclaims, after Amy expresses reluctance to join a carol-singing contest.
Kiki’s mom (Hines) takes motherdaughter togetherness to the clingy max, by snooping on Kiki’s sex life and buying the house next door.
Carla’s ma (Sarandon) is the polar opposite: She’s a trucker and gambler who only drops by every few years when she needs money, which is right now. She doesn’t even know the names of her grandkids.
Returning writers/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore once again pillage from The Hangover franchise playbook, which they helped cowrite. They even rip off their own Hangover post-party opening scene, replete with wild animal: a camel in the living room instead of a tiger in the bathroom.
Lucas and Moore are obviously running low on laughs, seasonal or otherwise. They frequently choose vulgarity over hilarity, such as putting the “F” word in the mouths of moppets.
The movie also has a raunchy scene where Carla, working as a spa esthetician, waxes the nether regions of a male stripper as both participants get highly aroused.
(It’s a very good thing the movie has an “R” rating — 14A in Ontario — lest anybody mistake this for family fare.)
When energy flags, as it frequently does, Lucas and Moore resort to The Benny Hill Show formula of manic naughtiness, set to a pop tune or holi- day ditty. The characters do things that would get them arrested in real life, such as stealing a decorated Christmas tree out of a shopping mall and making a beeline for the parking lot.
Watching this frenzy leads to the anxious feelings about Christmas that the three main moms claim to want to avoid. I sympathize with the comment made by Amy’s unhappy daughter: “Can’t we just hang out together and skip the annoying stuff?”