Why Him? and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox
Directed by John Hamburg
Ugh… so just because Daddy’s Home was a decent movie means we’ll be getting raunchy sitcom movies every Christmas? I’ve been dreading this movie since the first trailer came out; not just because of how bad it looks, but because it has two REALLY talented leads in it who both can be doing so much more than… whatever the this is supposed to be. Oh well, I could be wrong. After all, Daddy’s Home looked almost as bad as this film, and I ended up enjoying that quite a bit! Can this be the surprise hit of the holiday season; even with Rouge One and Sing looing large over the multiplexes!? I kinda doubt it, but let’s find out!!
The movie is all about the Fleming family; headed up by Ned (Bryan Cranston) and consisting of wife Barb (Megan Mullally), teenage son Scotty (Griffin Gluck) and grown up daddy’s girl Stephanie (Zoey Deutch). Without much warning, the family finds out that Stephanie has managed to land a boyfriend while at college and that she hadn’t bothered to tell them about him for months now, so OBVIOUSLY she has to drag them out to California just so they can meet him and of course this happens during the holidays so we can add that bit of tension on top of things. When the family arrives they find that the man of Stephanie’s dreams is some dude nearly forty named Laird Mayhew (James Franco) who acts like he’s still in college and is never called out on his shit because he is LOADED. Yeah, something about a monkey war game app which has to be Candy Crush levels of popular for him to be THIS rich, but it doesn’t matter. The important thing is that this overzealous bohemian stoner has ensnared the heart of Ned’s baby girl, and while there’s not much he can do to stop this, he’ll be damned if he enables this. That attitude comes to a head when Laird confides that he is going to ask Stephanie to marry him on Christmas Day and wants Ned’s blessing which he doesn’t get. Not one to give up though, Laird promises to make this the best weekend ever and try to convince Ned that he’ll be a good husband for Stephanie and the best son in law ever! Will Ned warm up to Laird’s unique ways of expressing himself and accept him for who he is? Will the rest of the family fall in line with Ned, or will they be enticed by Laird’s limitless supply of money and video games? Is anyone else finding this just the TINIEST bit creepy?
The Reviewers Unite 