Daddy's Home 2 Review

I didn't review "Daddy's Home" on this blog. Because I didn't see it. Not until yesterday, anyways. You see, "Daddy's Home" looked so stupid and I didn't want to deal with it. Yes, I see bad movies all the time in order to warn people to steer clear, but "Daddy's Home" just had awful timing for me. Not only did it come out around Christmas time, it also came out at almost the exact same time as "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." So not only did I not want to leave family during Christmas in order to see a dumb movie like "Daddy's Home," but every time during that holiday season that I did want to escape to the theaters, why in the heck would I go see "Daddy's Home" when I could simply go see "The Force Awakens" again? Seemed like a no-brainer. Once the holiday season was over, it was too late for me to care. So it never happened. But unfortunately that movie made an insane amount of money for how dumb it looked ($150.4 million domestically and $242.8 million worldwide), so because we live in 2017, that means sequel. Joy. Because who in the fetch wants a "Daddy's Home 2"? Not me. But in order for this franchise to stop haunting me, I bit the bullet and watched BOTH movies over the course of the last 24 hours. And now I'm here to complain.

The premise of "Daddy's Home" was that Will Ferrell is a stepdad with a seemingly perfect wife whose two kids absolutely hate him, despite his best efforts to be the best father figure he can. Right when he thinks he's starting to make some progress, their actual father, played by Mark Wahlberg, arrives and essentially derails all of that progress. While Wahlberg was one of the worst husbands and a really despicable human being, hence the divorce, he's nearly the perfect father as he spoils these kids to no other. And Will Ferrell doesn't quite have the heart or the confidence to simply kick him out, especially considering how cunning Wahlberg is. This leads to a 96 minute brawl between these two that isn't making wife too terribly happy with either one. But in the end the somehow manage to work things out and live happily ever after as co-dads while Wahlberg moves into the castle next door with his new supermodel wife and Will Ferrell stays at home with the kids and his wife. That's the first movie. Turns out in the second movie we learn that it wasn't quite a happily ever after as we continue the fight, this time adding two more dads into the mix, Walberg and Ferrell's dads, played by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow. Lots of dads. Lots of problems. And lots of headaches for me.

When it comes to the first movie, which I won't spend a ton of time on, my biggest question was who is the audience of the movie and what style were they trying to go with it? If they wanted to make a gag-filled, slapstick comedy for families, then fine. I can respect that, so long as it makes the younger kids laugh. On the other hand, if they wanted to go all out and make a raunchy comedy for adults, then fine. I probably would skip it because I hate raunchy comedies, but if the target audience loved it, then it's whatever. But it seemed like they couldn't decide which audience to appease and ended up with a PG-13 comedy that is way too dirty for family audiences, yet way too stupid and juvenile for adults. Thus the movie wanders in limbo or purgatory in my opinion as it's not able to please anyone. Thus I'm shocked at how much money it ended up making. On a similar note, the filmmakers also also couldn't decide what tone to give the movie. If they wanted it to be a serious drama about the struggles that stepdads have in raising their wives' children, it was way too unrealistic and over-the-top. If they wanted it to be an outright, ridiculous comedy filled with nonsensical slapstick humor, then the movie took itself way too seriously.

Unsurprisingly, "Daddy's Home 2" suffered from similar problems. Who is this movie for? Thankfully they toned down all the raunchy humor in this movie, as if they wanted to make a Christmas movie for families. But it still earns its PG-13 rating and thus I don't think this is a movie that kids would enjoy or should be taken to by parents, especially not when several other actual family friendly movies are heading their way into theaters this holiday. On the flip-side, are adults really going to go to this movie and find it funny? All of the humor crammed in is almost literally cut and paste from the first movie. In the first movie, Will Ferrell tries to ride a motorcycle and epicly fails with him crashing in the house with the motorcycle smashing the family van. In this second movie, Will Ferrell goes similarly berserk with a snowblower that leaves him hurt with the snowblower ending up on the family van. In the first movie, Will Ferrell got electrocuted will riding a skateboard. In this movie, Will Ferrell gets electrocuted when he cuts down a cellphone tower that he thinks is a Christmas tree. That's just two examples. Most of the gags are similarly identical, as if the writers cared more about their quick cash grab then trying to make a funny movie.

So yeah. The slapstick humor is the type of humor that I think is only really funny for young kids. Adults aren't going to laugh at it. Especially not when it's all copied and pasted from the first movie. But yet this is not a kids movie, so if they were targeting towards an adult audience, why not go all in and make a comedy that adults will actually laugh at? I personally don't think you need to have a ton of raunchy humor in order to make adults laugh, but if a movie wants to go that direction, then commit. I personally would say that, regardless of rating, adults normally prefer comedy that is clever and well-written. Surprisingly, though, I think a bigger problem with this sequel is the absolute lack of focus with the story. The first movie came out during Christmas, but is not really a Christmas movie. This movie comes out ahead at the beginning of the holiday season and is definitely an attempt at a Christmas movie. On paper, the idea of making a Christmas movie where the whole family gets together in an attempt to have a giant, happy Christmas party is a great idea. There can be a lot of humor with the clashing personalities and the outright insanity that the holiday season can bring, but the execution of that premise in this movie is absolutely atrocious.

Our recent "Thor: Ragnarok" movie proved that it actually is possible to take a whole host of characters and story arcs and weave it together into one beautiful movie, if you have good writing and good directing. What "Daddy's Home 2" proves is that it is very easy to take a ton of characters and a ton of story arcs and deliver a complete train wreck when your writing and directing is completely putrid. No, I didn't like the first movie. But at least it was somewhat focused in terms of story. It was Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg fighting to prove that each were the better dad for their kids. This movie continues that battle of Ferrell vs. Wahlberg, but also adds in Wahlberg's relationship with his dad, Will Ferrell's relationship with his dad, those two grandpa's reactions to everyone, Ferrell's wife and her battle with Wahlberg's wife, the drama between Ferrell's and Wahlberg's shared kids, the drama between Wahlberg and his stepdaughter, the battle between Wahlberg as a stepdad himself fighting John Cena as the perfect dad to his daughter as well as every other webbed relationship with everyone towards everyone else. If that was a confusing paragraph to read, just imagine all of that and more trying to be balanced on screen.

And the story. I mean, what story? Outside the attempts to try and balance all of these relationships, there is no real story. They're all celebrating a week or so together as a giant family during Christmas time. That's the story. We just move on from one gag to another gag to another gag to one random story arc to another random story arc to another random story arc, most of which had no relevance to the story as a whole. They were just all horrible attempts at humor that felt like the writers had no idea where they were going, but instead felt like there were 50 writers all contributing one scene that they thought would be funny. And remember what I said about the first movie not being able to decide if it wanted to be an all-out comedy or a drama. Yeah, same here. This is too unrealistic and insane to have any dramatic weight while also being way too serious for audiences to sit back and enjoy the movie as a crazy popcorn flick. Just multiply this by 100 with how many stories and characters the movie was trying to weave in. If you've ever watched a construction crew implode an old building, causing it to crumble and disintegrate into a pile of rubble and dust, that's what I felt like watching this movie. It was a bad idea that got worse as it went along.

I don't even blame the actors for this one. Will Ferrell got to be Buddy the Elf again, albeit a horrible impression of Buddy the Elf. Yet I think he had fun. John Lithgow definitely looked like he was having fun as Will Ferrell's equally as crazy father. Mark Wahlberg did his best as the movie was crumbling around him. Mel Gibson got to be Mel Gibson for the whole movie, if you know what I mean. The two wives tried to make their shoehorned parts work. And I can't blame any of the kids for this. Who I can blame is the writers and director for taking all of this talent and turning it into a complete disaster by not making any of it work. This movie doesn't who its target audience is. It doesn't know what type of movie it wants to be, whether dramatic or comedy. I don't think anyone had any idea what direction they were trying to take the story or what to do with the characters. Everything just happened and it was a giant mess. This movie clocks in at 100 minutes long, 20 minutes short of two hours. Yet I thought I was in the theater for nearly three hours. Granted this wasn't the most offensive movie I've watched. It's not a movie that made me super angry. It was just a huge disaster that felt like a complete waste of my time. I'm awarding "Daddy's Home 2" a 3/10.