After seeing A Bad Moms Christmas, I didn’t think that a bad, lazy, blatant money grab movie could get any worse, or more obvious, for that matter. My God, was I wrong. Daddy’s Home 2 is somehow even worse than A Bad Moms Christmas. Using the same stale and wholly generic formula of the Christmas themed sequel, Daddy’s Home 2: The Christmas Special is a cynical attempt to part you from your money under the guise of holiday cheer. Returning leads Marky Mark and Will Ferrell are back but this time their dads (Mel Gibson and John Lithgow) are coming too!
Daddy’s Home 2: Wild Hogs is almost a mirror image of A Bad Moms Christmas, but they’re both terrible. Both movies are premised on a running “countdown til’ Christmas” as chaotic family events spiral further out of control. Hilarity supposedly ensues (it never does) and never fulfills the film’s promise. Both films relegate the opposite gender, in this case, their wives, to inferior background roles. Both sequels feature parents of the original leads, in this case, the granddads, and both films feature family infighting about how Christmas should be carried out, and both movies are subpar retreads of their respective originals. Daddy’s Home 2: Never Say Never does make a point to emphasize the difference in each family’s parenting styles to an extreme degree. The film attempts, and fails, to derive its humor from the juxtaposition of the sissy, sensitive parenting of Will Ferrell vs the toxic masculinity of Marky Mark.
I had a similar look of horror during most of this movie.
The original Daddy’s Home wasn’t a good movie either. It was a buddy comedy about two dads being dicks to each other before learning that cooperation is better than fighting (see Step Brothers). Now insert the grandpas and the Christmas season. John Cena is an additional stepdad, because why the hell not? The only character I actually liked in this travesty was Mel Gibson as Marky Mark’s dad. He genuinely seemed to relish ruining everyone's good time and was the only character that didn’t go through some lame holiday epiphany. Instead, he’s just a dick who enjoys himself throughout the entire film.
Daddy’s Home 2: The Quickening is a great example of how not to do a sequel. When the best part about a film is a small cameo near the end, you know something has gone terribly wrong. The entire film comes off as the rushed production of a movie that wasn’t even that good to begin with. The only original idea of the movie was taken and somehow done better by the awful A Bad Moms Christmas. The generic plot, predictable story, lame jokes, and a rehashing of its predecessor are nails in the film’s coffin. Let’s just hope they leave the casket shut before we get Daddy’s Home 3: No Dad Left Behind.
TLDR: Daddy’s Home 2 is a terribly unfunny, despicable cash grab that you should avoid 1/5