By Raegan Scharfetter/managing editor
Two years after the original became a hit, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are back again in Daddy’s Home 2 with expected silliness but slight disappointments.
Brad (Ferrell) and Dusty (Wahlberg), the stepdad and dad who bonded around a commitment to their kids, spend a “together Christmas” in a cozy winter wonderland Airbnb with their conjoined families, which includes their two fathers, Brad’s over-sensitive and touchy-feely dad Don (John Lithgow) and Kurt (Mel Gibson), Dusty’s absent, womanizing father who attempts (and succeeds) in causing chaos between the co-dads.
The change of scenery in Daddy’s Home 2 offers Christmas-spirited mischief which Brad gets into, involving snow blowers, cellphone towers and chainsaws.
Although Daddy’s Home 2 gives an audience a cramp here and there from laughing too hard, Daddy’s Home was undeniably better. With wittier jokes and more noticeable chemistry, the original checked more boxes.
However, Lithgow was the perfect choice to play Ferrell’s dad. Don, along with Brad, were the source of nearly all the laughs from the audience.
And while there’s some fun in the brutal back-and-forth between father and son – as Kurt pushes his grandson, Dylan (Owen Vaccaro), to act on his first crush by “kissing her under the mistletoe then giving her a pat on the caboose and telling her what a lucky girl she is” and by telling the children a “dead hookers” joke – their connections are lost because of Gibson’s past.
To know how Gibson has reacted in real life when he feels crossed by a young girl made it difficult for viewers to be amused by his portrayal of a sexist, womanizing grandfather.
The casting of Dusty’s father could’ve been reconsidered just as Kevin Spacey was quickly replaced in All the Money in the World among the Weinstein scandals.
All in all, Daddy’s Home 2 served its purpose as a silly holiday movie, but Ferrell and Lithgow are the reason the sequel is worth a trip to the theater.
