This year’s obligatory Christmas film that releases the day after Halloween is A Bad Moms Christmas. 2016’s Bad Moms was a wholehearted tribute to mom’s everywhere. And even though many of its raunchy jokes failed to land and its script often felt cartoonish, a solid cast with good chemistry helped it get its point across. But that doesn’t mean there’s more story to be told with these characters.
A Bad Moms Christmas once again follows the lives of three middle-aged mothers whose individual crazy mothers come to visit them for the holidays and threaten to ruin their planned stress free Christmas. Amy (Mila Kunis)’s relationship with her snooty, overbearing mother (Christine Baranski) threatens to drive a wedge between her and her kids on the first holiday since her divorce. Sweet and docile Kiki (Kristen Bell) must find a way to tell her clingy, widowed mother (Cheryl Hines) to give her space . Meanwhile, resident bad girl Carla (Kathryn Hahn) just hopes her gambling, vagabond, mooch of a mother (Susan Sarandon) will stick around.
The first Bad Moms is hardly a year past its release, and the short time table between films is pretty noticeable in the script for this sequel. A Bad Moms Christmas seems like it was filmed in a day, with the story following a predictable arc and many of the scenes being nonsensical filler. The rushed execution also tends to rely on raunchy potty humor and foul language to get the audience laughing more than comedic timing. As a result, despite having some touch of endearment, this watered down continuation may be a fun romp for die hard mom’s who loved the first film, but anyone who expects anything better, or even something memorable, will be sorely disappointed.
FINAL GRADE: D