Bad moms, Bad movie?
Every Christmas Eve I watch Die Hard, Home Alone and Muppets Christmas Carol with my roommates as we celebrate in our own way. These movies are touchstones in pop culture and this tradition has been going on for many years. There are other movies than occasionally get interchanged such as; Jingle all the way, The Grinch or even Batman Returns but as I walked into Bad moms 2, I wondered if maybe this could be another seminal movie that people may want to watch every year? The short answer, no. The long answer…? Read this review.
Now I understand that I am not the target audience, I truly do. It was very evident as I walked into the cinema and was instantly surrounded by around 80 middle-aged women, all carrying complimentary drinks. I sat down with my bubbly and opened my mind in preparation for something I thought I may be able to enjoy. This sadly did not happen. Now I’m in two minds when it comes to deconstructing this movie and its content as the problems that I may have with it are superfluous when it comes to what I may want from a film. I’ve been thinking over and over about the scenes that everyone found funny and why, and I honestly feel at the point I could write a thesis on the differences of humour in film and the varying ages gaps of the target audiences that are affected by it, BUT FIRST, I have to talk about the plot.
I didn’t see the first Bad Moms, but I highly doubt it would’ve swayed my opinion on this Christmas themed sequel. The movie has a simple premise, the three main characters from the first film (Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hanh) are still mums and they still are underappreciated and as Christmas approaches, stress begins to take its toll. Simple enough but add unexpected or expected visits from the main character mothers it a six-mum combo that wants to lead into hilarity. My first problem with this film is that the mothers of the mums are just hyperextensions of their daughters’ personalities and to me, that seems like a lazy writing technique. I get it, were like our parents but it would’ve been slightly more interesting if the mother of the cliché uptight nerd daughter would’ve been the crazy gambling drug smoking mum and not the ultra-mirrored version.
Lazy seems to be the main word I keep coming back to when I think about this movie and I know that I haven’t written any award-winning movies (yet!) but I’ve seen more movies than I can count, and I understand story structure and pacing. Now the writing (and directing) duo that made these two Bad moms films also created the Hangover series, as well as other comedies of the like. This is pretty obvious as the three main characters from this series are very similar in characteristics as the other films. Other than blank copy paste character reusing another lazy convention is the constant use of the F-word. I’ll be the first to admit I swear but I don’t swear for comedy, and when its used to create a cheap laugh, I can’t help but groan. It’s almost as if Mila Kunis’ character trait and catchphrase was either yelling announcing “what the f**k?!”. I will seem hypocritical when I mention that I enjoy writers and directors like Kevin Smith and occasionally Judd Apatow (he’s hit and miss) but when they swear its based upon modern character traits that are expected and usually within clever dialogue.
This again brings me to the fact that I am not the expected audience. Swearing has been a common aspect of comedies from when I was growing up and throughout more recent years. So maybe, I’ve become numb to it and when I expect comedy I expect something more? People aged 20 years older than me, never had the kind of comedy I had when I was growing up and as such, see these unexpected expletives as something witty or taboo surprise.
Aside from mundane swearing and cliché tropes, there wasn’t much else that this movie consisted of. Again, I understand this movie wasn’t for me, but I struggle to find the strength to even recommend it to anyone at all. I don’t think it made a good movie, even when I tried to review it in the right type of mind. It’s not good, there are few ways it could be good but hey if you’re a middle-aged woman with unlimited free champagne, I can guarantee you’ll at least laugh?