Daddy's Home 2
Director: Sean Anders
Starring: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Mel Gibson
Daddy’s Home 2, which could have just been as easily named A Daddy’s Home Christmas, has done the unthinkable. It has convinced me there is a war on Christmas, and pushed me to take part in said war–on the opposing side. This is easily the worst movie I have seen this year, and is a sad landmark in the decline of modern cinema. You may have heard that it successfully normalizes Mel Gibson as a “family star.” This is true–he is the best part of the bad, financially successful movie. But that is just one of many insults that Daddy's Home 2–a cynical cry for help from the slowly rotting movie theater industry–hurls at its audience.
Mark “hope God forgives me for Boogie Nights” Wahlberg and Will Ferrell reprise their roles as Brad and Dusty, who now live and work in harmony as “co-dads.” This is a review of Daddy’s Home 2, not Daddy’s Home, but I do find myself wondering if Sara (Linda Cardellini–can we give her something better to do than play a mediocre man’s wife? Looking at you, Age of Ultron) had any say in her husband and ex-husband’s armistice. Both movies, in general, made me wonder how much say Sara has in anything.
The movie’s central conflict comes from a truthful enough reality–the children resent Christmas, because it’s a rush between each parent’s house, fragmented and lacking in that Holiday Cheer they keep hearing about. Brad, who is always Very Understanding at the beginning of a Daddy’s Home flick (until he is reduced to a selfish child by the end), suggests innocently enough that the families celebrate Christmas together. His mom and his dad, Don (John Lithgow), are coming into town, and they can enjoy another Christmas with grandpa. Shortly after, the phone rings at Dusty’s house, and in a moment that mirrors the introduction of Dusty in Daddy’s Home, Dusty’s father, Kurt (Mel Gibson), informs him that he’s in town.
Nothing new here. The actual plot moves like a fibrous bowel, eager to push things along so we can get into the “situational humor” of the entire blended family sleeping in one enormous Air BnB, which Mel Gibson booked immediately upon arrival–what a cool guy! Many of the situations start out believable, such as a passive aggressive war of the wills over the temperature the house is set at. The outcomes are unintentionally and cruelly absurd, though, such as a scene where Mel Gibson tells his grandson, Dylan (Owen Wilder Vaccaro), that a real man bowls without the bumpers–or some garbage like that–resulting in a scene where the entire alley gathers around the poor boy and mocks him for bowling a nearly perfect zero. The scene is resolved by him scoring one point, after a canned pep talk by one of the Daddies about how “we [insert family name here] men finish what we start!” This only comes, of course, after the movie decides to use its one F-word on Owen’s screams of anguish from the relentless mocking of strangers. Funny!
That cruelty pervades throughout the movie. Kurt, shielded in cynic, remains relatively untouched by it, but the same can't be said of poor Don, who the movie makes its mission to humiliate at every turn. As far as I can tell, his crime is nontraditional masculinity. This might not stick out as much if the movie took more swings at the surly and selfish Kurt–but it does not. To evoke the title crawl from Revenge of the Sith–a much better movie–in the world of Daddy’s Home, there are heroes on both sides, which is to say that everybody here sucks. Mel Gibson comes out of this movie looking the best because the movie, similarly to its predecessor, refuses to ever go too hard on his character of Kurt and Wahlberg’s character of Dusty. In a better movie, showing that these guys aren't evil–just damaged and destructive–might have been the movie's emotional core. Daddy’s Home 2, though, is more interested in showing you what pansies Brad and Don are for showing affection publicly.
When we aren’t rehashing moments from the first film–Will Ferrell dies again, Dusty brings him back to life again (the synopsis is funnier than the scene, trust me), Will Ferrell destroys Dusty’s car this time–we’re experiencing moments that are cowardly in their inability to take a side. Example: Kurt tells his grandson a real man should go hunting or some trash like that. Owen doesn’t want to hunt. Great! But then Megan (Scarlett Estevez), Owen’s sister, thinks she should be allowed to hunt. Kurt isn’t so sure about that. Neither was I, but for a different reason I'm sure than Kurt. The movie thinks it’s clever by porkbarrelling a murky message about guns in the midst of a strawman shoutout to feminism (if I remember correctly, Megan even says “I’m a strong, independent woman,” because I don’t think writers Sean Anders, Brian Burns, and John Morris have actually listened to what a woman had to say since their mom told them to wash their own sheets if they were going to jack off in bed). Megan shoots Mel Gibson–because, we get it, libs, guns are dangerous–but it’s only a flesh wound, and she turns around and blasts two turkeys away. The rest of the scenario is dedicated to showing how unfazed by the experience Megan is. Maybe guns are okay for little boys and girls after all!
There’s a lot of other garbage to talk about, but by now you know if this movie is or isn’t for you. A lot of my complaints with it might be selling points for you–but if they are, consider this final example: The movie’s climax is in a movie theater, where the characters talk
actively about how movies bring families together, and give us a moment to escape and have fun. The film portrays theaters as a pandering FAO Schwartz (memba those?) of instant gratification and holiday cheer. It’s a shameless plea by theaters to go see movies, instead of the theaters taking the time to see why fewer people are going (hint for any higher-ups reading this: it rhymes with “ricket rices”). Daddy’s Home 2 doesn’t care about your Conservative Family Values. It just wants your money.
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