REVIEW / COMEDY
A BAD MOMS CHRISTMAS
101 mins/Opens tomorrow
2 stars
The story: Stressed-out mothers Amy (Mila Kunis), Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) struggle to create the perfect Christmas holiday for their families while having to deal with their own overbearing mothers who have come to visit.
If you thought that Amy, Kiki and Carla were terrible enough mothers in the first film Bad Moms (2016), wait until you meet their mums.
Each one is crazier than the last: Amy's mother (Christine Baranski) is a showy perfectionist who buys affection with money; Carla's rocker mum (Susan Sarandon) drinks and swears even more than she does; and Kiki's mother (Cheryl Hines) is so clingy, she wears pyjamas with her daughter's face printed all over them.
It is too bad that they get so little screen time because the snarky scene-stealing grandmothers are the only ones who are mildly funny in the movie.
Everything else is simply a rehash of the older film, except that the mothers are now struggling not with humdrum bake sales and kids' soccer games, but with the stress of putting together the best family Christmas experience.
There is even a similar montage scene here in which the mothers let loose and go wild - only that this time, it is not at a house party, but during a Christmas shopping outing at the mall.
So, instead of drinking copious amounts of alcohol in someone's living room, they are drinking copious amounts of alcohol at a store - and dancing on Santa's lap while at it. The whole movie feels like a cheap Christmas pop music album - hastily produced and with nothing new to offer.
