Sandy Kenyon reviews 'Joy,' 'Daddy's Home'
NEW YORK (WABC) -- For many people, Christmas is a time for movies. And two new films making their debuts on Christmas day include Jennifer Lawrence's Joy and the Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg comedy Daddy's Home.
But on a day when so many sing "Joy to the World," it's a shame that Joy is such a disappointment. Lawrence won an Oscar in David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook, but their latest collaboration falls far short of that triumph.
The film should have been better than the one part that really clicks, the too-brief time when Lawrence shares the screen with Bradley Cooper.
In another one of her luminous performances, Lawrence plays a housewife from Long Island who is a born inventor. And like the real woman who inspired her, Joy finds fame on QVC, where her Miracle Mop makes her rich.
But by the time Joy triumphs, you've already spent so much time getting to know her fractured family that you hardly care.
Even Robert DeNiro as Joy's divorced dad couldn't stop audiences from growing tired of the family's whining and frustrated by their efforts to stop a woman so obviously talented.
As for the funny, Wahlberg returns to claim his family from a stepfather played by Ferrell in Daddy's Home, and just the prospect of seeing these is worth a giggle.
It's just a shame that the entire movie isn't as funny as the best gag in it. The ratio of funny to stupid isn't high enough, and the Hollywood brats in these movies are becoming even more obnoxious.
