Among the list of Boxing Day releases, you’ve got the animated kids films, some for the grown ups, the Oscar contenders and a foreign film to shake things up, but ‘Daddy’s Home’ is your staple family flick. This is your live-action comedy that’s safe for the whole family... so long as you’re not afraid of a low-grade salty word here and there.
Brad (Will Ferrell) is a newly minted step-dad. He loves kids and has always wanted to be a father, but sadly can’t have any of his own. Luckily he met Sara (Linda Cardellini) who already has two, Megan (Scarlett Estevez) and Dylan (Owen Vaccaro). Brad is a loveable do-gooder who works for the third most popular smooth jazz radio station in the country, but his cool, calm demeanour gets tested when Megan and Dylan’s mostly-absent dad Dusty (Mark Wahlberg) comes to stay. It’s the ultimate dad-off. All’s fair in love and war, and when you’re fighting for your family, all bets are off.
SWITCH: 'DADDY'S HOME' TRAILER
This is Ferrell and Wahlberg’s second on-screen pairing after 2010’s 'The Other Guys', and once again mediocrity reigns supreme. It’s pretty much a paint-by-numbers movie that straddles the line between funny and annoying as Brad and Dusty’s ongoing antics become more and more tiresome when they don’t seem to be building to a greater payoff.
It’s pretty much a paint-by-numbers movie that straddles the line between funny and annoying.
'Daddy’s Home' does have a nice message about blended families buried in there somewhere, and while it is funny (although you’ve seen most of the gems in the trailer), it’s not really the laugh-out-loud comedy you might have hoped for. It has a fun factor and it’s relatively safe for the family, so it’s worth a shot if computer-generated chipmunks don’t really do it for you.