Review of Bad Santa 2 (2016) by Jerrod O — 29 Jan 2017

"Bad Santa 2 will be on a different kind of naughty list, it's another ripe contender for my list of the worst movies of 2016.".

Movie Review: Bad Santa 2.

Date Viewed: November 26 2016.

Directed By Mark Waters (Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, Mr. Popper's Penguins, Just Like Heaven, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past and Vampire Academy).

Written By Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross, Based on characters created by John Requa and Glenn Ficarra.

Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox, Brett Kelly, Christina Hendricks, Ryan Hansen, Jenny Zigrino, Jeff Skowron and Octavia Spencer.

HO! HO! HO! HO! The first Christmas turkey of 2016 has arrived and this turkey is vile, disgusting, raunchy and no it didn't come out of Mr. Bean's head. "Bad Santa 2" doesn't have Christmas spirit, all it has is retread spirit. If you recall, the first "Bad Santa" movie from 2003 was the first Christmas movie to make the joyful holiday look bad. Directed by Terry Zwigoff and written by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (Crazy, Stupid, Love and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot), "Bad Santa" became a medium-sized hit and it sky-rocketed on home video sales.

Billy Bob Thornton who made a name for himself as Willie T. Soke had always wanted to make a "Bad Santa" sequel but it came 13 years too late and it came out during a year that was full of unnecessary sequels nobody asked for. "Bad Santa" had the tricky delivery of saleing itself as a black holiday comedy with lots of dirty behavior, sexual content and raw language but it had great comic-timing and a solidly funny performance from Thornton. Unfortunately, "Bad Santa 2" is almost unbearable to sit through, this feels like last year's "Hot Tub Time Machine 2". No effort was put into it at all and it hates it's characters. It may have inspired countless "Bad" movies like "Bad Moms", "Bad Teacher" and of course "Bad Grandpa" and "Dirty Grandpa" but do all of them really need a sequel? The easiest answer to that is "HELL NO!". "Bad Santa 2" will be on a different kind of naughty list, it's another ripe contender for my list of the worst movies of 2016.

At the end of the first "Bad Santa", we all thought Willie will change his ways and live a normal life but no, his girlfriend from the first film (Lauren Graham) has left him (No wonder! She wanted to do the "Gilmore Girls" reboot instead of doing this lump of coal), he is completely broke and penniless, he's still an alcoholic and a total drunk and he starts to commit suicide until Thurman Merman (Brett Kelly) shows up at his doorstep. That's right people, even the little fat kid from the first movie agreed to come back, should we all feel sorry for his career right now? Even though Thurman is now 21, he still has the brainset of an 8-year-old kid, he hasn't lost any weight and he is still a virgin.

Thurman wants to know if Willie has some has company for the holidays but he doesn't anyone around him this time because his life is so screwed up. Things only get worse for Willie as he catches up with Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox), his midget partner-in-crime who coldly betrayed him at the end of the first movie and after spending several years in prison, he wants to make amends with him and rob a charity in Chicago.

He has to wear the godawful Santa suit again but what's even worse is that the charity heist is being orchestrated by Willie's estranged mother, Sunny (Kathy Bates). In order to rob the charity, Willie and Marcus have to steal the keys from a female Hispanic security guard who is overweight and use them to steal the keys. Marcus begins to have the hots for the female security guard but she doesn't think a relationship is possible and that's all because of his height.

Willie also manages to pick up a new casual squeeze (What a surprise!) in Diane (Christina Hendricks) who is a charity organizer. Thurman also manages to catch up with Willie who might need some Christmas cheer because yeah like this movie has any Christmas cheer whatsoever. Not only does "Bad Santa 2" have little holiday cheer, it's also badly written, dreadfully unfunny and psychologically horrible.

Despite my criticisms, everybody at my screening laughed several times at "Bad Santa 2" and there were even two kids in the audience. There was a kid who looked like he was 10 or 11 and the other one was probably about 13. Are the parents of those kids proud of themselves for taking them to see a movie that's vile, hideous, disgusting and "Bad" in every sense of the word? One other footnote about "Bad Santa 2", it wasn't filmed in Chicago, it was filmed in Montreal. Let me guess, the studio wanted to save money.

Director Mark Waters has really fallen off the wagon. He started to hit it big with teenage hits like "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls" but then came atrocities like "Ghosts of Girlfriends Past", "Mr. Popper's Penguins" and "Vampire Academy". Waters shows no sense of clever comedic lining here and his direction feels lifeless. The screenplay by Johnny Rosenthal and Shauna Cross is beyond lazy and the performances feel phoned-in.

Why didn't Billy Bob Thornton re-write this mess? He's too good of a writer himself, he wrote the screenplay for his "Sling Blade" which earned himself a Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar. From "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2" to "London Has Fallen" to "Zoolander 2" to "Independence Day 2" to "Alice Through the Looking Glass" and "The Huntsman: Winter's War" nobody in the frickin universe requested these sequels. There are great little movies that are waiting to be green-lit and get released but "HELL NO!" releasing crappy sequels is more important and than turning on the mindsets of the movie-going public and it is certainly the most depressing story of 2016.

"Bad Santa 2" doesn't need a Christmas carol or some jingle bells, it just needed to have genuine heart and a more challenging and thoughtful story than this.