Daddy’s Home 2
Cert: PG; Now showing
Despite a comedy sequence set around buying a gun for a minor (oh, America), not to mention the fact that we shouldn’t really be back here at all given the dearth of laughs in the first film, a more serious elephant sits in the corner of Daddy’s Home 2.
Mel Gibson’s revival as a top Hollywood player, to the point he can frolic through a festive family comedy, feels bizarre in today’s climate where even an allegation can see stock value fall sharply. After all, there is nothing alleged about Mr Gibson’s transgressions.
It’s all put on hold as Gibson plays Kurt, the estranged, devil-may-care father of Dusty (Mark Wahlberg).
Opposite, John Lithgow, a more adept comedic actor, prances about expertly as Don, father to Will Ferrell’s Brad.
The four head off for a family vacation in a snowy cabin with Brad’s longsuffering wife Sara (Linda Cardellini), Dusty’s wife Karen (Victoria’s Secret model Alessandra Ambrosio) and the children.
Much like how Dusty and Brad started out in the first film, Kurt and Don are polar opposites, the former mean and snarling, the latter a weepy sentimentalist. Maybe, just maybe, they can come together in the spirit of Christmas. National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation is an obvious touchstone but Daddy’s Home 2 is nowhere near as rib-tickling. Director Sean Anders’s script goes repeatedly to the standard festive-comedy well — outof-control sleighs, tangled lights, uncooperative trees etc — and also tries (and fails) to pull-off a thermostat joke. Lithgow is a small mercy.