Bad Santa 2 (2016)

This got a drubbing on release, a damn good thrashing. Such a dreadful kicking in fact, that I didn’t go and see it, despite the original being one of my all time favourite Christmas films. What’s immediately apparent about Bad Santa 2 from the off, is how mean spirited it is. It’s crude, nasty, and doesn’t care who it offends. So the next question that must be asked is thus; is it more offensive than the original or has the world simply become offended more easily? Well it’s a bit of both. A large amount of Bad Santa 2 is rubbish, and it ultimately fails to justify its existence, but there is some extremely crude humour that I found myself laughing at, and that was due to knowing the characters themselves very well. The film doubles down on its toilet humour, scraping the bottom of an already pounded barrel, but miraculously some of it raised a chuckle. Billy Bob Thornton’s Willy, the bad Santa in question, has hit rock bottom since the end of the first film, before he is reintroduced to both Tony Cox’s Marcus (his co-conspirator in Bad Santa) and his estranged Mother, a truly filthy Kathy Bates, to engage in yet another heist with Santa costumes the crux of the plan. Christina Hendricks adds more barrel scraping filth, and the amusing heart of the first film, Brett Kelly’s Thurman Merman, is once again the butt of many jokes. The quite incredible achievement of the original Bad Santa was combining dirt filled humour with genuinely touching affection, resulting in a true all time classic. Bad Santa 2 throws all of the former with a tiny smattering of the latter, meaning that unless you absolutely love everything to do with the first film to the point where you might forgive a rotten sequel, there’s nothing for you here. But I do love absolutely everything about the original. So…..there we go. 5.0/10