Parents' Guide to Daddy's Home 2

The stars have chemistry and comedy chops we've seen proof of in other, better movies -- so it's hard to blame this crass comedy's sour, unpleasant undercurrent on them. But although Daddy's Home 2, like the first movie, seems to be positioning itself as the kind of family comedy you might go see together over Christmas, it's doubtful that parents will want their kids to see the movie's kids getting drunk, enthusiastically shooting wild turkeys, talking back to their elders, ignoring everyone in the room to scroll through the iPhone hiding their face, etc., etc. They'll be even less pleased with Gibson's character arc, in which Kurt is transformed from "unfeeling chick magnet" to "gruffly affectionate dad (who's still a chick magnet)." It may be possible that there's a universe in which a grizzled 60-something man is catnip for gorgeous college coeds -- but it's not the world we currently live in, even though the movie describes Gibson as "beautiful" and "carved from Gibraltar." (Gibson's complicated personal life only adds more ick to his part.)

For their part, Ferrell and Wahlberg are great comic foils for each other. And this time around, their rivalry is more about who's the better dad than who's the manliest man, which is a positive change. But Gibson's Kurt -- and the many other explicitly offensive messages about men and women (a female character is urged to cover her midriff like a "nice girl," a boy is exhorted to play a sport "like a real man," etc.) still make this an iffy pick for young viewers, despite the antics and pratfalls that may grab their interest. Worst of all is a scene near the movie's end, in which a boy who's been teased for liking a girl is told by all the adults to go kiss that girl -- and, instead, he plants a surprise kiss on another girl. Is she dismayed by the kiss? Surprised? Horrified? The movie doesn't ask -- or care. She's an object to be triumphed over, a mark of a boy's impending manhood, not a human being with feelings. Later, young girls (and one boy, who has a cheeky expression) line up to kiss the other boy underneath the mistletoe, which the movie seems to find charming and funny, as if that boy is a womanizer-to-be in the Grandpa Kurt mold. In a movie that wants to give us messages about togetherness and families, these and other scenes strike a regressive note that make all the gags and absurdity a lot less fun.