STX Entertainment
Last year I was dragged to an advance screening of Bad Moms and while I was sure I would enjoy the movie overall, I definitely wasn’t prepared for the crowd that attended. The result was a film that made hundreds of women laugh so loudly that I could hardly hear some of the scenes. The film was surprisingly funny with great chemistry between Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell, and Kathryn Hahn. I didn’t mind the film, but I also didn’t love it. I wasn’t surprised to hear the announcement of a new Bad Moms film centered around Christmas time, I’m just happy it’s not the raunchy trio being bad moms on a regular calendar day. Maybe next year the filmmakers will release “A Bad Moms Flag Day”, we’ll just have to wait and see.
A Bad Moms Christmas reunites the moms from the first film who are tired of being under-appreciated around the holidays and decide to rebel against the challenges and expectations of the Christmas season. Adding onto their holiday stress is the appearance of each of their mothers, played by Susan Sarandon, Christine Baranski, and Cheryl Hines. This creates more havoc for the film as each mother has a personality that clashes with their own daughter. To my surprise, I really enjoyed this film and found it to be more entertaining than the original.
For the first half of the movie, A Bad Moms Christmas seemed like it was just going to be a Christmas themed repeat of the first film. The characters and plot line all felt used and I was wondering to myself where the film was going. The humor was in place and the chemistry amongst the main leads was still intact, but it felt as if I was experiencing deja vu from the first film. It wasn’t until a scene at a local trampoline jump zone where all the families got together that A Bad Moms Christmas really became its own film.
After borrowing a lot from the first film, the story picked up and the laughs started coming quickly. One scene, which involved Kathryn Hahn doing a routine waxing on a male stripper, had the crowd and myself roaring with laughter. Hilarious moments like this kept my interest level high and always entertained. This film benefited from the original since the relationships were stronger in this movie and each one of them felt comfortable in the group setting which allowed for more laughs.
I didn’t find any of the grandmothers involved to be particularly funny, but their development is what I found heartwarming. Mila Kunis’ mother, played by Christine Baranski, had the most development since she was cast as a control freak over the holidays. She and her daughter’s love-hate relationship led to the film progressing into a nice message about what the holidays mean to families. The film focused the most on their relationship and gave them the most development which was satisfying because they had the most tension throughout their scenes.
A Bad Moms Christmas had an excessive number of slow-mo scenes that became quite redundant. I understand that the technique is cool and can accompany some fun sequences, but doing it more than twice in a film like this just becomes tiresome. The first Bad Moms movie suffered from that as well and it only happens when the moms are deciding to be “bad.”
I know I’m not the target audience for A Bad Moms Christmas, but I still found humor and heartwarming moments in it. There was a lot of improvement over the first film even though a lot of scenes felt like repeats. A Bad Moms Christmas put me in the holiday mood and it was a nice way to kick off the month of November.
A Bad Moms Christmas runs 1 hour 44 minutes and is rated R for crude sexual content and language throughout, and some drug use.
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