Daddy’s Home

Predictably stupid and hopelessly obnoxious, Daddy’s Home follows Will Ferrell’s well-meaning Brad Whitaker as he finds his status with his wife (Linda Cardellini’s Sara) and stepkids (Scarlett Estevez’s Megan and Owen Vaccaro’s Dylan) threatened after the children’s biological father (Mark Wahlberg’s Dusty Mayron) arrives on the scene. It’s an eye-rollingly pedestrian premise that’s executed to seriously underwhelming effect by director Sean Anders, with the movie’s pervasively generic atmosphere compounded by an almost total lack of laughs (ie most of the comedic elements here fail to evoke even a chuckle). The film’s low-hanging-fruit sensibilities pave the way for a raft of over-the-top sequences that are, to put it mildly, misguided, and it’s clear, too, that Anders, working from a screenplay cowritten with John Morris and Brian Burns, compounds the less-than-hilarious vibe by infusing every aspect of the proceedings with an almost painfully broad feel. Ferrell and Wahlberg’s disastrously lazy work here finally confirms Daddy’s Home as nothing more than an ill-conceived cash-grab, and, notwithstanding an amusing final few minutes, it’s difficult to envision anyone viewing this as anything more than the cinematic equivalent of elevator music.

** out of ****