Biological dad Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and step-dad Brad (Will Ferrell) have gotten used to each others’ style of parenting and are best friends, sharing time with their kids and even extended families. When Dusty’s macho, old fashioned dad (Mel Gibson) and Brad’s liberal, gentile dad (John Lithgow) show up for Christmas, Dusty and Brad must resist the temptation to revert to their old ways of butting heads and fighting for the sake of the kids.
We say, “If you liked the first movie, you’ll probably like this one too. But…”
TAYLOR: There isn’t anything wrong with this movie that ignoring it won’t fix. We had the choice of seeing and reviewing one of three possible movies this week, Daddy’s Home 2, Coco (a lovely looking animated film) and Wonder (think Mask Junior.) I picked Daddy’s Home 2 because I thought the other two would be better movies that didn’t deserve to be ripped apart. You’ll go see them anyway. Don’t go see Daddy’s Home 2. It’s terrible on every level.
HOWE: Wow what a movie. Packed full of talented stars, crammed full of jokes and a great buddy story line. Sorry, Daddy’s Home 2 isn’t that movie. What we have is lame recycled jokes, angry men shouting at one another and a plot so weak it makes my wife’s cup of tea look strong. This is hard to say because I love Ferrell and Wahlberg in their own thing, but this is just too painful. Even adding Lithgow and Gibson to the mix didn’t do anything. What an awful, horrible movie.
TAYLOR: I was lucky to have missed the first of these films, which came out two years ago. However, even being so lucky, I could tell that some of these jokes were callbacks to the first film, as if the cast was subliminally hamming to the audience, “Hey, remember when that happened last time? Funny, right?” No. Prat falls, homophobia, antiquated notions of masculinity and femininity, inappropriate language and behaviour out of children, these things aren’t usually funny and to build an entire movie out of them is shameful. To build two entire movies out of them is disgusting. Forget this movie and don’t give them your money — they’ll only make more.
HOWE: Three words come to mind when I finished watching Daddy’s Home 2, keep your money. Not only save your money, but your time and dignity too. I don’t think I laughed once. I cringed a lot, but laugh, no, not once. That’s it, I am not wasting any more time on this Christmas turkey.
Howe gives Daddy’s Home 2 one light bulb out of five.
Taylor gives it a zero.