Daddy’s Home | What to Watch

(Image credit: © 2015 Paramount Pictures. All)

This good-natured comedy rolls along on the chalk-and-cheese skills of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg

This good-natured comedy rolls along on the chalk-and-cheese skills of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg.

Ferrell is a nice, mild-mannered stepdad who finds himself competing with Wahlberg’s swaggering, macho father for the affections of his family.

Cunningly exploiting his rival's insecurities, Wahlberg uses mind games to undermine timid Ferrell and gets him into one embarrassing scrape after another.

The sight of Ferrell repeatedly coming a cropper produces a steady steam of chuckles, but things might have been even funnier if the contest between the rival dads had become nastier. The set-up has clear potential for dark comedy, but because at heart everyone here is essentially good-natured the film is an amiable watch rather than a laugh riot.