A Bad Moms Christmas

"Celebrate the holidays like a mother."

Filmology Rating: 2 out of 4

Under-appreciated and overburdened moms Amy, Kiki and Carla (Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn) rebel against the challenges and expectations for moms during Christmas. As if creating the perfect holiday for their families isn't hard enough, they'll have to do it while hosting and entertaining their own respective mothers when they come to visit.

The Bad Moms are back but are they bigger and badder than ever? No. Do they still offer some good laughs and a good time? Yeah I would say so. A Bad Moms Christmas suffers from the very contagious condition of sequalitis. While following suit with the same bad bitch vibe yet empathetic feel, it doesn’t quite hit home like the original did. Something was definitely lacking but what was it…?

What made the original Bad Moms work so well was the fantastic cast that it had. Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell were once again great but it was Kathryn Hahn that really stole the show once again. She was always funny and used so much more than just the dialogue to be funny. Her style, body language, facial expressions, etc. all added up to her being extremely funny once again. These three ladies had fantastic chemistry throughout and you could tell that they were having a ton of fun making a sequel. That being said…. It wasn’t quite enough to bring the film to the original glory they built in the previous film. What brought this film down was the plot itself and how writers/directors Jon Lucas and Scott Moore built the grandmothers.

There is a certain satirical and exaggeration found within the actions of the grandmothers that brought me out of the film at times. Some of the actions they do or things they say are nothing short of inexcusable and absolutely psychotic. Yeah yeah yeah I know that that was supposed to be the point but the message would have still been crystal clear if this was toned down a few notches…. Make that a lot of notches. There is a point when the family drama builds to a breaking point resulting in the actions of the bad moms towards their insane mothers. These actions are completely justifiable and yet we are supposed to believe that it is a Greek tragedy that these events occurred. I get that those events needed to happen to get the emotion ending that the film builds to but I once again circle back to the craziness getting turned down a few notches. The results would have been exactly the same and would have been far more believable.

I had a moment of Déjà vu watching this film, that being that just like the first installment, as funny as this movie was at times, it will be funnier for all you moms out there because you can relate to this film in a way that I just can’t. There were several moms in the theater that were laughing so loud and stomping their feet because they couldn’t contain their laughter. Just like the original Bad Moms, there was a more serious theme to the film; the main message in the first was that mothers, and parents in general, try so hard to be perfect and to do everything right but that is just impossible; you are going to mess up, going to feel overworked, and that it is ok to not feel like the perfect parent all the time. Parenting is a learning process and you may never get it right but that’s ok as long as you are active and there for your children. A Bad Moms Christmas adds to those themes while also adding that if you aren’t careful, you might have the same bad qualities that your parent had and that you hated while you were growing up. In order to break the cycle, you need to be actively working on it to make a change to not repeat history. Like the first, this is a great theme that will connect with a lot of parents.

Overall, this was a step down from the original but it offers some laughs and a good moral lesson here and there. Listen, if you liked the first, most likely you'll like this one as well but if you didn’t, then you are safe to skip this one and go out and see Thor: Ragnarok.

Rating: Rent It

-Nick