Daddy’s Home 2
“Daddy’s Home 2” is an excessively negative, strained and predictable comedy.
The sequel manages to expose the first film’s problems, like a black light on old subway car upholstery. You’ll walk out feeling ready to write a doctoral dissertation focusing on the flaws of the “Daddy’s Home” franchise.
But the biggest sin is in the final act, when the filmmakers completely waste a John Cena appearance. Everything else up until this point is forgivable. That last error should cost someone their Producers Guild of America card.
“Daddy’s Home 2” returns with co-parents Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and Brad (Will Ferrell) getting along great, until they’re joined by two unlikeable granddads: diabolical cad Kurt (Mel Gibson) and the annoyingly upbeat Don (John Lithgow).
From there the film trudges through a series of contrived conflicts, too many of which involve Ferrell’s character creating a disaster while using power tools. Some of these bits are kind of funny, like when Brad uses a chain saw to cut down a cellular phone tower, thinking it’s a Christmas tree. Others feel like desperation. Audiences will yearn for the subtlety of the “Home Alone” burglars.
The fundamental flaw of the first “Daddy’s Home” was wasting Will Ferrell’s strengths, making him a onenote nice guy without the oblivious arrogance, flashes of anger or brazen cluelessness of his best film characters. (“Talladega Nights” driver Ricky Bobby had all three.) The original film was carried by Wahlberg, and his entertaining transformation from tough guy to enlightened modern dad.
Dusty and Brad both regress throughout the film, bringing the kids down with them. There’s an anythinggoes attitude toward obtaining a laugh, whether it involves preteen children getting drunk or using firearms or a toddler getting abandoned in the cold. Meanwhile, the scheming adults become more unlikeable with each snowblower accident and car crash.
There are a couple of decent gags in the middle of the movie, and some unexpected twists that suggest what the movie could have been. Some sports advice by Gibson as alpha male Kurt actually works for Brad’s dweeby stepson. A turkey hunting expedition builds with comedy; Don and Brad quickly try to name the bird to keep a bloodthirsty granddaughter from blowing it away.
But then Cena arrives, and the lazy writing is exposed again, without a doubt this time. As the wrestler proved in “Trainwreck,” he is a nuanced comic actor, aided by his willingness to look foolish or vulnerable or a little insane.
Here he’s a cardboard cutout, not even given the opportunity for a memorable scene. Just another unsympathetic character, adding to one of the more downbeat Christmas movies in recent memory.
A redemptive finale arrives too late, like trying to put a pin back in an exploded hand grenade. By any standard, every person in the world of “Daddy’s Home 2” would be scarred for life by the events in the film. The real happy ending is that no one in the audience has to go home with these people.