Checked out Bad Moms Christmas yesterday (it opened on Wednesday for some reason). I liked the first Bad Moms movie quite a bit and it made a lot of money at the box office… I did not like this quickie, cash-grab sequel.
The movie still stars Mila Kunis, Katherine Hahn, and Kristen Bell (all fine comedians and actors) and it repeats a lot of the beats and joke structures of the first. So immediately this is a “let’s do it again” type sequel, written quickly. Plus it’s a Christmas comedy so we get all the usual over-used Christmas comedy jokes. AND they bring in the Grandmas… Christine Baranski, Susan Sarandon, and Cheryl Hines as the demanding mothers of our bad moms. Which could be funny, in theory.
Once I’m checked out on the barely-there plot and random, scattershot jokes, the movie’s structure now has to repeat itself three or more times. Each ‘bad mom’ has put up with each grandmother, each grandmother has to ruin Christmas somehow, each mom has to have a fight with each grandma, and then they each have to settle their differences so we can have a nice, safe wholesome Christmas day. If you aren’t invested in each of the three stories, the movie has to repeat the same beats three times for each character.
Not much else to say. I really did not laugh and was not drawn into the story this time. It feels like a cheap product put out quickly without enough time to write a clever or funny script. It’s possible I just don’t like Christmas comedies or I expected too much. Liked the first, hated the second.
Score: 56