Daddy’s Home 2: The Christmas daddies are on

Cast: Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg, Linda Cardellini, John Cena, John Lithgow, Mel Gibson

Rated: 5/10

Christmas has turned rather overwhelmingly parental this year. First, there were bad moms trying to survive the stress of organising a perfect Christmas for their kids. Now there are fathers — and some nutty grandfathers thrown in to shake up things a bit further — to catch your attention with shared homes, moms, dads and children trying to make a family reunion in some snowed out chalet booked on Air B&B.

Sadly, both fare moderately in unfolding the really groovy Christmas spirit as good old Hollywood used to do some years ago with such engaging emotion. As daddies, Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg make too much noise even though one is curly-haired and emotional and the other muscled and uptight. Also, you wonder what the wanderer Mel Gibson is doing as a philandering dad to one of the dads walking away with stranger women when all he should have been doing was to hug his grown-up little one with a chip on his, well, entire body instead of just the shoulder.

It is a very unreal family that gets together so there isn’t much to look forward to this Christmas. But on a lean week, it still makes some carol singing sense. After all, something is better than nothing.

 

Source: Sunday Pioneer, 10 December, 2017