Movie review of “Bad Santa 2”: If ever there was a movie that should never have been made, this is that movie. It’s vile, like something written by a pen dipped in bile. Rating: ½ star out of 4.
If ever there was a movie that should never have been made, “Bad Santa 2” is that movie.
It’s vile, like something written by a pen dipped in bile.
Its dialogue is a gushing sewer of obscenity. After watching it, a viewer may feel the need to take a nice, long hot shower to wash the experience off.
Movie Review ½
‘Bad Santa 2,’ with Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Kathy Bates, Christina Hendricks, Brett Kelly. Directed by Mark Waters, from a screenplay by Johnny Rosenthal, Doug Ellin and Shauna Cross. 92 minutes. Rated R for crude sexual content and language throughout, and some graphic nudity. Several theaters.
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Back in 2003, the original “Bad Santa” generated its laughs through surprise and shock: surprise at the shocking misbehavior of its title character, an alcoholic misanthrope played by Billy Bob Thornton. Did Willie Soke, thieving department-store Santa, really spout profane rancor into the ears of impressionable young kids? Sure did. Was he an unregenerate horndog hooked on meaningless sex? Sure was. How very un-PC of him. And one would laugh. But one wouldn’t feel too good about oneself for having done so.
Now, 13 years later, he’s back. But whatever rancid charm the original possessed has been replaced by a sense of unrelieved bitterness.
This picture opens with Willie, submerged in self-loathing, vomiting in an alley and shortly thereafter urinating on a photo of the young woman who was the single ray of cheer in the first movie. She hasn’t been brought back for the sequel. In her stead, the screenwriters introduce Willie’s mother (Kathy Bates). Upon seeing her for the first time in many years, he hauls off and punches her in the face. Not nice! It turns out, though, she totally deserves it. She’s been a horror of a mom from the moment he was born.
“I didn’t even know I’d given birth until I tripped over him,” she confides.
Some highlights: Willie, clad as Santa, kneeing another Santa in the groin then stomping him. Willie, clad as Santa, engaging in alley sex with a character played by Christina Hendricks. Willie, exchanging coarse insults with Marcus, his partner in crime who tried to kill him in the first movie.
And so it goes. On and on. Coal in a stocking would be an upgrade from this poisonous holiday gift.