MOVIE REVIEW - Daddy's Home

The new Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg comedy, Daddy's Home is out and it's a mixed bag.  Fans will love it, critics will not.

This is a look at step-parenting through the prism of comedy.  It's the story of how step and biological fathers can or cannot get along, all written through and extremely exaggerated story line featuring polar opposite characters and actors.  All things being honest, there are some good laughs in this, and there is an attempted heart to be grown.  But in the end, this turns out to be more mean spirited than maybe it was intended.

One of the main problems here is the writing, especially the part of the very young step children.  Sadly, the writers chose to make them really selfish, heartless, even borderline unlikable.  This was a chance to make this movie far better.  Instead of allowing simply the adults to act like children to place the laughs on them.  They also extended the children to act like shameful adults that puts their behavior in the same category.  This was a colossal failure of this movie.  Hard to cheer for kids with dirty mouths, and disrespectful attitudes.  But the temptation is just too great and easy for them not to be so.  If you think about it, every really great kid in a really great movie, they act like kids and not adults.   (Example Ray in Jerry McGuire, and Opie on the Andy Griffith Show.)

Ferrell and Wahlberg are decent together.  They are who they are, especially Farrell.  It was good to see Linda Cardinelli back on the screen, been a long time since her wonderful stint on ER.  There are some funny slapstick scenes and some really clever sights gags, but overall this is simply another Farrell comedy, that looks like the last one.

Daddy's Home.  Same old thing, just a new wrapper.  Some laughs, but a bunch of average.