A foul mouthed, alcoholic, sex-obsessed criminal in a Santa suit freaking out kids and shagging everything in sight.  13 years ago we got introduced to Willy – better known to the world as Bad Santa.  A movie that to this day remains my favorite ever Xmas movie and in my top 10 movies of all time (along with Sling Blade – Billy Bob Thornton rocks my world!).  And now in 2016 Willy and his crew are back for the long awaited sequel – Bad Santa 2.

First off, let me say that deep down I always knew this movie would not be as good as the original.  There was almost no way it could be.  Even Billy Bob was quoted in an interview during production that he thought the movie would be good but not as good as the first.  But the trailers had me hooked from the get-go, to the point that when I found out my local cinema would not be playing the flick I drove 180km to Echuca just so I could see Willy on the big screen.  That’s the kinda obsessed fan I can be.

This movie picks up 13 years after the original and that is fully demonstrated by the reappearance of Thurman Murman, the fat, curly-headed, slow witted kid from the first flick.  Thurman is all grown up now and turning 21, Willy’s birthday present for him being a session with Opal the prostitute (who was also in the first movie) which he makes Thurman pay for himself, though he runs off rather than going through with the act.  Listening to Willy instruct Thurman on how to have sex is one of the filthier and funnier moments between the two in the movie and quite the laugh.

Willy and Thurman’s relationship was the main focus of the first movie, showing how Thurman’s naïve trust and affection for Willy as Santa slowly teased out a glimmer of humanity from the drunken crook.  In this movie their relationship hasn’t changed.  Willy still talks to Thurman like he is an irritant, but feels some need to keep the grown up Thurman under his crooked wing.  While Willy never puts Thurman ahead of himself, he finds himself never able to completely abandon him when he is in need either.  While there are some short funny scenes between the two, their relationship never really grows in this film like it did the first, and Thurman is very much a secondary character, more of a hassle for Willy to take care of, even if that means dumping him in a hobo hostel where men are actively either vomiting or masturbating.   A very touching scene near the end of the movie shows Thurman singing in a choir and Willy, despite running late to rob a safe, can’t pull himself away.  Willy stands there almost in tears watching him sing, while Thurman’s face lights up with pure joy when he see’s Willy in the audience.

We also see the return of Marcus, the angry dwarf from the first movie.  Marcus, having been arrested after events of the first movie (which included trying to kill Willy at the end) has gotten out of prison after ten years and is going straight back to his old tricks.  He recruits Willy for a job where a safe-cracker is needed and takes him to Boston.  Once again, there is no real development of the relationship between the two from the first movie, their tit-for-tat mean-spirited bickering being a highlight of the original flick.  While we get some similar scenes here, every time they seem to be able to kick off properly they are interrupted by Willy’s Mother (whom we shall come to) laughing at or repeating one of their insults.  I found this to be a bit irritating, interrupting the flow of a dialogue which proved such a highlight in the first movie.  But like Thurman Marcus has been relegated to a secondary character.

The new character we are introduced to is Willy’s mother (played by Kathy Bates) who  has been in contact with Marcus since he got out of jail and arranged for him to bring Willy in on the job, knowing full well that Willy would say no immediately if she approached him directly.  This is the new focus of this movie, watching the relationship between Willy and his mother rekindle.  Willy’s mother proves every bit as foul as Willy, having fallen pregnant with Willy when she was 13 (according to her the only time Willy’s father didn’t give it to her in the ass) and giving birth to him in a state correctional facility, not realizing she had actually given birth until she tripped over him lying on the floor.  Throughout the movie it is portrayed that while she is an immoral, foul-spoken, dirty-minded, career criminal (explaining a lot about why Willy is the way he is in the process, she even framed him when he was 11 for a crime that she committed) she is also is trying to reconnect with Willy, due to her age and failing health, stating the reason she brought him in on the job because she thought it would be fun for them to work together.  Willy hates her with a vengeance, and quite rightly so, but over the movie softens that tiny bit, stealing a bottle of cough medicine for her and even smiling (albeit once) at one of her jokes.  She also presents him with the first gift she has ever given him in his life, a gun in case Marcus tries to kill him again.

Willy in the movie is, well, Willy.  The character has not changed since the first movie in any significant way except for at the start being so depressed he tries to commit suicide twice.  You still see that glimpse of softness you saw in the first movie when dealing with Thurman, though in usual Willy style this softness is portrayed as trying to abandon Thurman at a Laundromat and stealing his money, only to come back a minute later swearing at himself for being so weak to do so.  Willy’s sex-obsession is well in play, be it getting a handjob from a former shotput champion, having sex with the lady who runs the charity (played by Christina Hendricks who Willy quite accurately describes when trying to sweet talk her as having ‘humongous f*cken titties’) behind her husbands back and revisiting his predilection of having anal-sex with overweight women.  It’s shown that Willy has never truly gotten over his love affair from the first movie (stating at the start of the movie that there is only so many times you can throw up in someones lap before it kills the romance) when he keeps asking Hendricks character to wail ‘F*ck me Santa!‘ like his old girlfriend used to during sex.  Willy doesn’t have as many great lines in this movie as the last, a lot of which spouted from his drunken rages at having to be Santa again.  In the first movie he was bitter and very angry, whereas in this one he is bitter and comes across as just tired of it all.  He even see’s having to seduce and sodomize the hefty, slutty security guard as a chore.

And overall maybe that is the problem with this movie.  Willy comes across as tired because he’s done it all before and this movie as a whole suffers from that same issue.  While they have tried to introduce a new element with Willy’s mother, it just isn’t enough.  It’s the same jokes, the same antics, the same everything.  13 years ago a lot of these jokes packed a punch, these days folk are more desensitized.  The crux of the first movie was Willy’s degenerate behaviour and how others reacted to it.  In this movie Willy is actually that bit more moral than both Marcus and his mother which removes a lot of the humor.  There is no real character development or growth for Willy, except for the aforementioned very slight softening towards his mother.  Marcus is the same backstabber, Thurman comes across as a slightly more confident grown up version of himself but essentially the same, and Willy’s mother, who is now the new most detestable character, just isn’t as funny in this position due to the other characters and the public not really reacting to her wicked ways.

That isn’t to say this is an awful movie.  There were a few times I laughed damn hard, but it could be that my affection for the first movie made me more amenable to those gags than most.  But Bad Santa 2 movie is definitely a ‘Ghostbusters 2’ of a movie.  By this I mean it’s great to see the characters you love back on the big screen, but the magic and fun of the first movie just isn’t there.  I’m glad I saw this movie, but I wont be rewatching it 13 years later like I still do the first.

So have you seen Bad Santa 2?  Will you see it after reading this review?  Would love to read your thoughts in the comments section below.