Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg's new movie had a good weekend at the box office but incurred the wrath of critics.
Daddy's Home 2 is the creatively named sequel to 2015's Daddy's Home. The follow-up film is Christmas themed and sees Brad (Will Ferrell) and Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) joined by their intrusive fathers (played by John Lithgow and Mel Gibson) for the festive season.
The movie is set to be released in Australia on November 23 but opened in the United States last week and finished second at the box office behind Thor: Ragnarok.
Daddy's Home 2 reportedly cost $A90 million to make and raked in an impressive $A39.2 million in the US on its opening weekend.
Sure, it might have performed well but critics were less than impressed.
A number of film reviewers took issue with the casting of Mel Gibson in the family comedy given his well documented "incidents" over the past decade.
Here's what critics had to say about Daddy's Home 2:
• "Sequels almost always fall short of their predecessors, but the amusing parts of the first Daddy's Home are just a distant memory here. It's like getting socks for Christmas one year, and a box filled with poo the next. Mark Wahlberg recently apologised to God for appearing in Boogie Nights. He's going to have to ask Santa to forgive him for Daddy's Home 2." - Toronto Sun
• "During its 263 minutes (I'm told in reality it is a mere 100, but I cannot believe that figure) - sprinkled with all manner of sexism, homophobia, gun fetishism and comedy so weak it is a surprise a screenwriter could muster the strength to type it out in the first place - I felt prepared for death. I longed for it, even. Its sweet release would surely be preferable to watching what is the most appalling excuse for a motion picture I've encountered all year long - and 2017 also delivered the evil that is Transformers: The Last Knight." - Globe and Mail
• "Daddy's Home 2 is aimed at the most amnesiac, uncritical segment of our population, for whom it would never occur to connect the dots between Gibson's documented anti-Semitism and abuse of women and his character's objectification of them here, nor scenes of children wielding firearms with recent/perpetual gun violence. It needs our ignorance to survive." - Vulture
• "Seemingly made to push the bottom line more than for any creative incentive, returning co-writer/director Sean Anders produces a wonderless, unimaginative humbug of a comedy, one that comes with all the appeal of slushy snow and goes down about as smooth as spoiled eggnog. You may have been naughty this year, but nobody deserves to have Daddy's Home 2 in their stocking." The Playlist
• "Daddy's Home 2 operates without memory or shame. It can only exist if one ignores the mass shootings we read about every day, resisting the urge to read too much into a little girl, spurred on by adorable bloodlust, almost kills her grandpa with a loaded rifle. It can only be funny if we forget that Mel Gibson is a racist, unrepentant wife-beater - that he is protected by the same veil of silence and industry clout that protects Harvey Weinstein and Kevin Spacey and Steven Seagal and Louis CK, et al. - choosing to let him back into our hearts." - Paste magazine
• "Daddy's Home 2 seems like just another cookie-cutter comedy, but its heart is in the wrong place. It's mean-spirited and half-hearted, and more than that ... it's just not funny." - IGN
Daddy's Home 2 will be released in Australia on November 23
