Let's be realistic.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

This seems strictly like a cash grab. It had twice the crudeness from the original but only half the story.

Watched this for two reasons, in spite of hearing of the negative reviews: 1) Watched it as a sort of homage to the original, and 2) I'm sort of wary of 2nd hand info, when it can be easily watched.So, I watched it. The best way to describe it is to remind you of the common preconception of the original "Bad Santa", admittedly gleaned from the previews showing at the time: It was popularly understood to be a "bad boy" yawp, which contrasted wonderfully with the discovery that it worked marvelously as a touching redemption tale. It was a fantastic Christmas movie for the ages, cleverly disguised as a prurient snack toss-off.Well, "Bad Santa 2" IS *that* movie. It is nothing more than the bad-boy snack boredom killer that "Bad Santa" was supposed to have been.Even if I discount the original--decide not to judge "BS2" by the standard of "BS"--it *still* simply fails to rise to the level of a film worth watching, if you expect movies to be more than boredom killers. I got one grim chuckle out of the whole thing, and the rest is pretty much just well-produced spectacle. The flick *is* well-produced... but that's it. There's no real mythic payload, except for a tepid and poorly thought out demi-effort to shoehorn a few would-be redemptive moments in, here and there.It's sad. Is it *really* the case that in all of the Hollywood system, not one decent breakthrough screenplay that would do decent service to the gravitas of the franchise was anywhere to be found? Really?I give this a few stars merely for the expert production work. Aesthetically, it's a sump.Go watch the original; specifically, the director's cut. You might cry tears of redemptive joy.

Willie Soke (Billy Bob Thornton) is still a drunken screw up. Happy endings are BS. He tries to commit suicide only to be saved by The Kid, clueless Thurman Merman. Marcus Skidmore (Tony Cox) gets early release from prison and has a job lined up in Chicago, robbing a charity run by Diane Hastings (Christina Hendricks). They infiltrate by joining the Santa charity and then it's revealed that Willie's mother Sunny Soke (Kathy Bates) is the leader of the scam.It's not funny anymore. It's not so outrageously new. Even the Kid is no longer a kid. He's still chubby but the humor is gone. It's sad to sit thru an unfunny comedy. I wonder if a sequel could be made of him struggling to make it work in the suburbs with Sue. Kathy Bates competes for an ugly off. Billy Bob is lifeless. Hendricks is cold. Not much is funny here.

A awful film with all jokes fro the first just repeated in a more crude fashion with no real store character building or anything of note. Do not watch this film i want my hour and a half back. I did like the first one but this one felt like it was just made for the money i wish i had something positive to say about this film however i do not.