The surprise hit "Bad Moms" is a comedy starring Mila Kunis, Kristen Bell and Kathryn Hahn and is directed by both Scott Moore and Jon Lucas. This movie centers itself around Amy (Mila Kunis) a mother of two who is a bit of a perfectionist. She aspires for her family to have the best that the world can offer. Unfortunately, after a series of bad events everything goes downhill fast. Luckily Amy befriends two other struggling mothers Kiki (Kristen Bell) and Carla (Kathryn Hahn) who work together to try and make some sense of their crazy lives, while having some fun at the same time.
First and foremost, "Bad Moms" works extremely well. I can honestly say that this movie completely shattered my expectations. While the film isn't breaking any new ground or providing any sort of different approach to the extremely over saturated comedy genre, it is fun. That's right, the film from start to finish never fails to entertain. The films humor works on multiple levels. The jokes here never quite seem to stop coming and the entire film feels thoroughly littered with hilarious moments. This is an excellent break from many modern day comedies where all of the jokes come in both the first fifteen and last fifteen minutes. Raunchy humor was obviously a big selling point for this movie, yet thankfully the movie never feels too overbearing with its vulgarity. Never once did I notice a particular character was dropping "F-Bombs" just for the sake of it, but when they did the jokes were hilarious. Writing in this movie is the chemistry between these actresses also felt extremely tight and without it the film just would not have gelled correctly.
All of the actors here are surprisingly funny. Even Kathryn Hahn's (who I have found quite annoying and overly rambunctious in past outings) character here proves to be hilarious and she never misses a beat. Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell also play very entertaining and likable characters. Another surprise was Christian Applegate, Jada Pinkette Smith and Annie Mumolo's performances as the villain moms. While at times they got a tad too outrageous for their own good, these three women were truly amusing and helped further the comedic aspects of the film. Also, a huge shout out to Martha Stewart's hilarious cameo in the film. The only negative that can really be geared toward the acting in this film is the child actors. While I'm sure these kids didn't exactly chose the writing they were given, they come off as spoiled little brats. Throughout the entire movie these kids constantly pestered the overall fun tone that this movie was riding on.
Speaking of tone, this movies strength comes from the lighthearted nature of the plot. The movie is surprisingly heartwarming, yet never overbearing on its themes of family unity. The film knows it's a comedy and it sticks to being a comedy very well, something that can be attributed to the excellent direction and writing in the film. Yet another strong suit in "Bad Moms" has to be its well-rounded pacing. Very seldom in this film does it feel like the plot is glossing over important story points. Impressively it does this while at the same time remaining consistently funny. Moving on to the soundtrack and overall sound design of the film: The soundtrack while not exactly bad, is utterly forgettable. Audiences will struggle to remember a single track and relating scene in the film by the next day.
Going into this movie I completely expected a bland over saturated film about female characters going wild. Instead what I received was a smart film that carries extremely strong female characters without having them seem needy and dependent, something that haunts the film industry today. Luckily this film does all of these things while remaining consistently hilarious and surprisingly sincere. Ultimately "Bad Moms" suffers a few minor hiccups along the way, but comes out a surprisingly hilarious and fun romp.
