Problem Child 2

Jeff’s take

As a rule, normally movie sequels are never as good as the original. Over the years, there have only been a few exceptions to this rule. I find that most movies I watch don't really need sequels as they tend to get everything right the first time and there's no need to continue the story any further. In the first movie, I got a kick out of the child's antics as bad as they were. I believe that the ending to the first movie was as far as it needed to go. I knew if they were going to make a second one that maybe the kid would find someone who was as bad as he was and he would maybe meet his match ETC. This is pretty much what occurs in this movie. I find that his bad antics and pranks were what made the first movie worth watching but I had a feeling that they would have had to introduce a new character that might have been worse than him and to me, that was unnecessary. The first movie ended fine. At some point, he would've had to be upstaged. I knew they just couldn't recycle the same storyline from the first movie in order to advance the story. However, this movie did not need a sequel. It was good enough the first time. I'll admit that there were some good moments throughout this movie and to its credit, the child doesn't exactly act like an angel in this movie either. However, I'm going to have to drop the rating from a full score this time because there was no need to add another movie in the franchise in my opinion. I do realize that this is the Problem Child franchise so it would have looked weird if they had all been well behaved children throughout the whole movie and to me, the children weren't the problem. The actions of the adults bothered me the most. It can be said that none of the pranks or bad actions throughout this film would've happened if adults hadn't set a bad example for the children by behaving the same way. This film tried to depict the bad children but in my view, the adults were much worse. Granted, I know this was a comedy and everything is done to make the viewer laugh. Most of it does but I will also say that some parts went too far. For example, the continuous toilet humor and gross out comedy was a little too much for me at times. I don't really know what I was expecting from the second movie that I didn't get out of the first one but if I'm being honest, I really wasn't expecting much because I thought that this was an unnecessary sequel from the beginning. The introduction of a second child who was just as bad if not worse than the original child was almost inevitable. However, this movie gave me the opportunity to see if the child would finally meet his match. This is something that was missing from the first movie. I'll give the movie credit for the adult who tried to have him sent to boarding school but I wish the movie focused more on his effort to prevent that from happening instead of him trying to prevent his father from finding love again. Overall, this movie wasn't the worst sequel I've ever seen but it didn't match the quality of the original. Some parts were funny, particularly the scenes that involve the children, but there were too many moments that felt unnecessary or over the top. I will probably continue with the series at some point but this movie did not improve upon the original and to me, it felt like the story was stretched too far. It's one of those movies that I can take or leave. I don't regret watching it but I also wouldn't necessarily watch it again. It was average at best. I don't want to totally fail it because like I said, there were some good moments. They've simply taken it further than it needs to go. Having said that, it wasn't completely horrible so I will count the positive points throughout this movie so that it won't completely fail. Hopefully my next review will be better.

Jeff O Meter final score: 5 out of 10