Daddy's Home 2 Review: 3 Ups & 6 Downs

1. It Fails To Exploit Its Satirical Potential

With such a rowdy cast of entertaining actors, there was so much potential here for Daddy's Home 2 to lean into the satirical side of its premise, particularly in regard to how parents raise their children and the material nature of the holiday period.

Much like the first film, any possibility for subversion is pretty much ignored, and what you get is simply an earnest holiday flick that espouses the usual trite truisms about the togetherness of family and the importance of Christmas.

Given how few-and-far-between cynical, self-aware Christmas movies are, this could've been an interesting twist on the usual formula (and indeed, the prior film's template), but instead it opted to keep things cheery and syrupy, likely in pursuit of a possible third film.

Now, Daddy's Home 2 is most definitely a bad film, but it does have a few scattered moments of inspiration...