DADDY’S HOME 2
are cartoonish campy drag personae of women, categorized by their attributes, like Santa’s reindeer or the Smurfs: Stressy, Crazy, Slutty, Critical, Clingy and Drifter. Kunis stars as Amy, always harried, always “busy.” She’s divorced with a couple of kids (Oona Laurence and Emjay Anthony), whom she warily apprises, as if she’s not quite sure who they are or why they’re in her house. She shares the same chemistry with Baranski and Peter Gallagher, who play her parents, treating them like a couple of wayward strangers. With her gal pals, it’s all forced fun, loud laughing, cheers-ing and declarations of “let’s take back Christmas!” — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
BLADE RUNNER 2049
1/2 PG-13, 100 minutes. Niantic, Waterford, Stonington, Westbrook, Lisbon. “Daddy’s Home 2” just might have to meet “A Bad Moms Christmas” outside in the parking lot to rumble over this turf war. Both films are seasonal romps about intergenerational love, acceptance and different parenting styles, but “Daddy’s Home 2” slightly gets the edge. The surreal and silly sequel to the hit 2015 comedy skates on the well-known but still-appealing comic personas of stars Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg and their zany chemistry. Co-writer and director Sean Anders returns to helm the family comedy, and like the moms in “Bad Moms Christmas,” “Daddy’s Home 2” doubles down on the dads. While milquetoast sweetie stepdad Brad (Ferrell) managed to exert his sensitive, progressive influence on tough guy Dusty (Wahlberg), it’s a whole new ballgame when their fathers come to town. Jon Lithgow is brilliantly cast as Brad’s dad, Don, aka Pop Pop, a chatty retired mailman with cookies in his pocket. Then there’s Dusty’s father, Kurt (Mel Gibson), who goes by “El Padre” with the kids and is a womanizing, virulently macho astronaut who keeps trying to give his grandchildren guns for Christmas. The secret sauce that makes the “Daddy’s Home” films work is the strange brew of chemistry between Wahlberg and Ferrell. Wahlberg is his breathy, exasperated self, while Ferrell executes his naive oaf routine he does so well, lending his clumsy physicality to all manner of bodily injury, accidents and mishaps. Christmas, of course, lends itself well to the repeated power tool gags that Brad gets into, with snow blowers and lights and chainsaws and cellphone towers. — Katie Walsh, Tribune Content Agency
THE FLORIDA PROJECT
Anne.”) But, though Moonee doesn’t really know it, this is no fairy tale: That castle, just outside Disney World, is a rundown budget motel, and Halley, who’s in her early 20s, is unemployed and struggles to pay the meager rent. Scrounging free food is a game for Moonee, but it’s a necessity; soon, Halley has to resort to more dangerous ways of making a living. Writer/ director Sean Baker (“Tangerine”) tells us this story from Moonee’s point of view; we run in the Florida sunshine with her, seeing the motel and its surroundings as her grubby but inviting playground, finding the wonder in a Creamsicle-colored sunset and a magical night of fireworks. Fantasy and reality mingle everywhere here; note the street sign pointing toward “Seven Dwarves Lane,” and the way a grandmother asks her granddaughter, “Do you want to play with the kids from the purple
palace?” And there’s even a kind prince/ guardian at the gates: Bobby (Willem Dafoe, beautifully subtle), the hardworking motel manager, keeps a watchful eye out for Moonee and her friends, even when you can see he’d like to swat them away like flies. The beauty of “The Florida Project” is how Baker uses a cast of mostly inexperienced actors to tell a story that feels completely, utterly real. — Moira MacDonald, The Seattle Times
GEOSTORM
1/2 PG-13, 109 minutes. Through today only at Stonington, Lisbon. “Geostorm” finds ways to draw attention away from an interesting use of weather as a weapon by using a cold front of political jabber. The problems in “Geostorm”