Daddy home 2 follows the traits coming from the difficulty of continuing a comedy, no matter how successful. Comedy in any movie has always been, and needs to be irreverent. For this, all the norms of a society are put upside down, mocked and ignored, until in the end irreverence calms down to a happy ending, where everyone, one way or another, gets what they are looking for.
These “norms” are often included in serious characters and who hold a significant position in society. For example, in the comedy Entering a Cold (2002), Greg, played by Ben Stiller, meets for the first time with the family of his girlfriend. The patriarch of the family, Jack, played by Robert De Niro, not only embodies the harshest rules of society for being an incredibly tough and demanding father, but also for being a government agent. The fact that Greg is the opposite of Jack, being more malleable and desperate to please the future father-in-law, is what gives grace to the comedy. In the end, the intention is for the two to find a way where both can live happily.
This feature, however, makes the sequence of a comedy always a bit strange, a little overdone. After all, if opposites (such as Jack and Greg) can accept their differences and live happily, what is the grace of having a continuation? The only way then is to exaggerate and create even more irreverent or serious characters, often being hard to believe. The success of such a sequence, in this way, is difficult to predict.
Daddy home 2 is no different. The first movie, from 2015, tells the story of Brad, (Will Ferrell) a clumsy guy who has good intentions and wants to please the children of Linda, his new wife. His intention is to make a good family and make the children love him as a father. But his opposite, the biological father of the children, Dusty (Mark Wahlberg), who looks like a rock star, puts a big block on Brad’s goals. So the two compete to see who is the best dad, in a hilarious comedy where the norm of the traditional family is what turns upside down. In the end, love for the children unites the two, who learn to live with one another. And here comes the question: if the conflict is over, how to continue this film? And the answer is always more characters and more exaggerations. This does not pose much problem for the film, since Will Farrell’s productions tend to be exaggerated. The new characters, who are the parents of both main characters, are the two new opposites who need to learn to live together and spend Christmas with their children. These are interpreted by Mel Gibson and John Lithgow, a choice of very successful cast since the two could not be more different.
Even so, the problem of exaggeration still exists. For example, although the movie seems, for a moment, to be directed towards the family at large, piquant jokes show that its real audience are adults. In addition, if in the first film the two parents can complement each other in the end, giving the children a good (although unusual) education, here the exaggeration does not make it so clear. In fact, while the first production always had a parent arranging a good solution to the children’s problems, here it often seems that the two are wrong. It is difficult then to believe in a true solution to the problems of the family in the end, however good it may seem. But this does not detract from many fun scenes and even though it’s not like the first movie, it still makes Daddy home 2 funny.