Daddy's Home Two (2017) *1/2

Run Time: 1:38

US Release Date: November 10, 2017

Rated: PG-13 (Profanity, Sexual Content)

Director: Sean Anders

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, John Lithgow, Mel Gibson, Linda Cardellini, John Cena, Allesandra Ambriosio

Right up front I must admit that I have not as of this writing seen Daddy’s Home. A film should be able to stand on its own and I kept that in mind when sitting down to a mostly empty theater to see this latest attempt to attract holiday movie-goers with a Christmas themed sequel. This is the second such attempt to be released in the last few weeks (the other being A Bad Mom’s Christmas). Releasing these films nearly two months before the actual holiday doesn’t really make much sense. After all, do you release a Halloween movie in August or a Valentines movie in December? But I guess in the mindset of entertainment Thanksgiving is a non-holiday in the mad dash to get to Christmas.

The film focuses on a broken family, several in fact. We have Brad and his wife (Will Ferrell and Linda Cardellini) and Dusty and his wife (Mark Wahlberg and Alessandra Ambrosio) who share custody of their two children. A third child from Alessandra’s previous marriage is also in the picture and mid-way through the film her father also makes an appearance played by John Cena. The two fathers have different ideas on what is best for the kids but have come to terms with their differences, at least on the surface. But when daughter Megan (Scarlett Estevez) expresses her dislike for the holidays because of being pulled between the two households during the season the fathers determine the best way to deal with this is to have a joint Christmas together. This is complicated by the arrivals of Brad and Dusty’s fathers (Mel Gibson and John Lithgow). Bad spirits arise right out the gate as Dusty’s father, Kurt (Gibson) seems determined to drive a wedge between Brad and Dusty at every turn. Meanwhile Brad’s father, Don (Lithgow) arrives without his wife and questions immediately start to form as to why.

Right from the start there is trouble in paradise with this film. By fifteen minutes in I realized that I hadn’t laughed once. I knew it was going to be a long slog to the finish line when five minutes later the only other attendees at my screening left the theater and never came back. I sat it out, though, hoping it would get better and it never did. Not one laugh in the entire film. The jokes fall flat all around and there is a general feeling of mean-spiritedness to the whole proceeding. For a holiday film there is a lot of negativity to it. Even when it tries to add a pretty bow to the ending it fails to stick the landing and Gibson, whose character is the most in need of an arc, learns nothing and is just as much a jerk as he was at the beginning.

Holiday movie-goers will be sorely disappointed with what is served up here. This is not the film you would want to take the whole family to see this holiday season. It will make you question how much you really like those relatives you’ve gathered together for the holidays. If you are in a mixed family it will not inspire you into feeling you can make it work during the season or any other time of the year. It is a cynical film determined to cash in a successful film and a holiday theme and it fails on both accounts. You’d be better off seeking out one of the classics than wasting your time with this abysmal failure of a holiday film. Bah Humbug.