As I mentioned in the past review, Hollywood has produced a plethora of reboots and remakes. Even though "Daddy's Home 2" is a sequel to 2015's "Daddy's Home", at least it is a somewhat original film or based on an original idea. And what would the Christmas season be without, at least, one Christmas based comedy?
Biological dad, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) and stepfather Brad (Will Ferrell) have set aside their differences, and are content to work together to care for their children for the sake of the kids. However, the perfect family Christmas get-together that the two devise becomes complicated by the arrival of Brad's ultra affectionate and emotional dad, Don (John Lithgow) and Dusty's old-school, hell-raising, macho dad, Kurt (Mel Gibson). Will the neutral place--a ski lodge in the mountains, to celebrate Christmas--an idea of Kurt's, really bring these family members more together or farther apart?
Others to round out the cast are Linda Cardellini as Sara, Brad's wife, Alessandra Ambrosio as Karen, John Cena as Roger, Owen Vaccaro as Dylan, Scarlett Estevez as Megan and Didi Costine as Adrianna.
What actually helped this film was that it was directed by the same director of "Daddy's Home" '15, Sean Anders ("Never Been Thawed" '05, "Sex Drive" '08, "That's My Boy" '12, "Horrible Bosses 2" '14, "Daddy's Home" '15). With this part of the equation, it keeps the characters very similar with this film's predecessor in order to have the smooth transition it probably wouldn't have had given a different director. Certainly this is this filmmaker's comfort zone at hand and is effective in this capacity. It was also written by Anders and writer John Morris ("She's Out of My League" '10, "Mr. Popper's Penguins" '11, "We're the Millers" '13, "Daddy's Home" '15) plus others which is based on characters created by Brian Burns. Again, like the directing, this works because the writers are the same as its predecessor. I have found that when sequels are written by different writers, they have a tendency to have a skewed script-- the continuity between films lacks--sometimes tremendously. With these ingredients, it made this storyline flow much better. Don't get me wrong, this wasn't a perfect film--far from it. There were a few places of lack of cohesiveness as a couple of slow places, but all in all, the plot worked. What made this work more than anything was the two lead actors--Ferrell and Wahlberg. this wasn't their first rodeo in a film together. Besides "Daddy's Home", they were in the cop comedy, "The Other Guys" '10. Even though that film was lackluster, I could see promise in its two stars, Ferrell and Wahlberg. They are so extremely opposite in the roles they play that the refreshing contrast worked.
If you like comedies or are either a Ferrell or Wahlberg fan, you will really get into this film, but even if you're not, this film has an interesting story and the chemistry between its two stars is funny. And it was wonderful seeing two seasoned actors, John Lithgow and Mel Gibson obviously having a ton of fun with this one.
Out of 4 Stars: 3 Rated: PG-13 100mins.
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