Sunday, 5 November 2017

FILM: A Bad Moms Christmas (dirs: Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, 2017)

"It's Christmas?"

The first festive offering of 2017 (first week in November!) sees the Bad Moms team return in a sequel that rigidly retreads the template but with added 'mothers of the mothers' and Christmas trees.  Oddly, the Christmas theme is often abandoned in favour of straight mother-daughter relationship scenes, giving the film a slightly stop-start feel, but this sequel capitalises on what worked best in the first film: Kathryn Hahn's wild character is a hoot, Mila Kunis sells the material brilliantly, and the chemistry between the three leads is terrific.  In spite of the relentless stereotyping (male and female) and the material is again slight, there are more laughs this time round and Baranski, Hines and Sarandon bring their considerable experience into comedic play effectively (and a potential spin-off movie is set up into the bargain).   Continuity fans will have a field day with snow and hair, but as the film breezes merrily along,  subtlety and detail are hardly the point here.  It is fun, it is forgettable... it's Christmas!


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