'Daddy's Home 2' REVIEW: Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg are back at each other's thr

'Daddy's Home 2' is the sequel to Daddy's Home (2015) and is once again directed by Sean Anders, the director behind other comedies such as Sex Drive (2008), Horrible Bosses 2 (2014) and That's My Boy (2012) and is the writer of films such as Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011) and We're the Millers (2013). From the films that I've chosen that this director is associated with, I wasn't surprised how this film turned out. To be totally honest, I didn't hate the first Daddy's Home. Will Ferrell and Mark Walhberg have proven in the past that they do have comedic chemistry with one another as demonstrated in the film The Other Guys (2010) which was super funny. In Daddy's Home, they still got it even though the humor was heavily weighed down from trying to be too family-friendly. It was a film that was just confused. It wanted to have the best of both worlds from trying to be partly raunchy and irreverent, but also wanted to be sentimental and sweet and they just didn't blend well. It had laughs, but it was a mess. So, with a sequel they could learn from their mistakes and try to fix that. After all that's what sequels are for. Unfortunately like all other comedy sequels, this belongs in the trash.

Following the events of the first film, Brad Whitaker (played by Will Ferrell) and Dusty Mayron (played by Mark Wahlberg) have become co-dads and have grown to be best friends. But, Dusty's daughter Megan (played by Scarlett Estevez) is unhappy that she and her brother Dylan (played by Owen Vaccaro) have to move back and forth between houses in order to celebrate Christmas so the dads conduct a plan to have one Christmas all together. The plan has been suddenly interrupted when both of Brad and Dusty's fathers Don Whitaker (played by John Lithgow) and Kurt Mayron (played by Mel Gibson) come to visit. Sounds familiar, right? That's because A Bad Moms Christmas (2017) is the exact same thing, only it's dads that are this film's hurricane.

Just like I said before, Will Ferrell and Mark Walhberg have comedic chemistry and it shows again here. They have perfectly opposing personalities and that makes for potential comedic mastery. The casting for the grandfathers I'd say is pretty spot-on. I have to admit, there were at least 5-6 times where I was laughing out loud while the audience was in complete silence. But, sadly there were laughs that came from jokes that didn't belong in this movie.

I just want to talk right away to the elephant in the room and that is Mel Gibson. Believe me, I like the guy even with his controversial eye-opening headlines in the past. He has been an influential actor and director of mine from the first three Mad Max films and even his directorial works of such films like Braveheart (1995), Apocalypto (2006) and most recently his Oscar-nominated film Hacksaw Ridge (2016). I would go far as to say he is a hero of mine. I was concerned here that he was going to be too serious and would spoil the consistency of the comedy. After having seen the film, he actually has proven to me that he has the potential to be a comedic actor to an extent. While I did laugh of some of the stuff he was saying, they just don't belong in this supposedly family-friendly comedy. For example, Mel Gibson's character is trying to one-up against the other grandfather at telling a funny joke to his grandchildren and in the start of his joke he mentions a dead hooker in a car. On it's own it would've been funny, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it had no place in this movie. The majority of Mel Gibson's jokes are all mean spirited and he does come off mostly charmless. What I'm saying is that he's got potential, but only with the right material to work with. The things that's also common with failed comedy sequels is that they often repeat the same jokes over again, it's no exception here. By now it's tired and there are stretches in this film where there were no laughs and it got boring. This movie's also really sexist. The women have little to no say when it comes to the conflict of these men and they're just left to the side for most of the movie. Linda Cardellini played Will Ferrell's character's wife in the film and has nothing to do or say. Who's worse is Alessandra Ambrosio and I like her as a Victoria Secret model, but here she sucks as an actress. There's even a running gag that makes no sense when Alessandra Ambrosio's character is constantly writing stuff about Linda Cardellini's character and she has no idea what she has done.

Overall, this sequel has no reason to exist. The first film made loads of cash and they think that a sequel is going to give them the same success. The film can be funny at times, but the film is far too mean spirited for a typical Christmas comedy and it's a waste of time for everybody involved and those watching.

'Daddy's Home 2' gets a C-