(This review may contain spoilers).
I did watch the first of the Bad Moms movies and enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would. I nearly didn’t see this movie, but then wound up seeing it with one of my friends at the cinema.
I felt the movie started off really well in showing the aftermath of what had happened and setting the scene. It was good to see that each of the main characters’ mothers had their own personality and was completely different to her daughter. However, I was disappointed that there was almost no focus on the kids and their personalities. It seemed they only appeared when it was convenient to the plot; and I couldn’t have named any of them off the top of my head.
It was good to get something of an idea of Ruth’s upbringing, even though I felt the moments of her actually caring about her daughter were few and far between. While it was clear she cared about her grandchildren, I really couldn’t see it when it came to Amy, who I felt demonstrated far more patience than I would have done in the same situation.
To be honest, I spent most of the movie thinking all three of the mothers had major faults. With the exception of Ruth, none of them interacted with their grandchildren – and apart from one brief scene, Ruth’s only interactions with hers was to give them expensive gifts that sounded like she was trying to one-up Amy.
It bears repeating, I think, that for a film about Moms, the children had very small roles to play. Rather than seeing Carla truly caring about her son – which Iris seemed to see, despite a lack of scenes with the three of them together – all I saw was a woman who didn’t care enough to even consider a Christmas present for him and did the laziest thing possible. Even by the end, there was nothing good or heartwarming shown between them.
To be honest, perhaps the strongest part of this movie was the adult humour, even though it was very cringeworthy at times. Probably the part I actually found myself laughing at was when Amy, Kiki and Carla stole a Christmas tree from the mall.
I would say that this film was fun to watch, but it wasn’t a feel-good movie in the same way a lot of Christmas films are. And in my opinion, the first movie was much better, with more of a focus on the characters being moms, rather than just bad.
I have to say, I don’t intend to buy this movie on DVD when it comes out; and I don’t have a burning desire to watch it again in the near future.
Ink of Blood 