Ever since having her first child at age 20, Amy (Mila Kunis) has always struggled to be the perfect mother, helping her kids get their homework done, making them breakfast, making sure they get to their activities on time, being present for their school events, and getting home in time to have dinner ready—all of this while also being over-worked at her part-time office job as a sales representative for a coffee company. Some of the other moms at school—snarky PTA president Gwendolyn (Christina Applegate) and her fellow perfect mom mean girls Stacy (Jada Pinkett Smith) and Vicky (Annie Mumolo)—give her a hard time for always being late and like to point out her other shortcomings.
If things weren’t already stressful enough, Amy learns that her lazy mortgage broker husband Mike (David Walton) has been having an online affair for the past 10 months. So now she has to do everything on her own (not that Mike was actually helping with anything). All of this stress finally causes her to snap. The other moms, and especially Gwendolyn, are speechless when Amy tells the PTA president “No” after she tries to assign her an unwanted task. Amy instantly becomes an inspiration to straight-laced, unappreciated stay-at-home mom of four Kiki (Kristen Bell), who wants to be Amy’s friend. The two meet lazy, foul-mouthed single mom Carla (Kathryn Hahn) at a bar, and the three women decide to start doing whatever they want, letting their kids fend for themselves for once. However, Gwendolyn wants to nip this defiant behavior in the bud, and starts abusing her power to punish Amy’s children. So Amy retaliates by putting herself in the running for Gwendolyn’s prized PTA presidency.
This film had me laughing out loud quite a bit—I love all of these characters! The axis of evil of the perfect moms were so fun, from Christina Applegate’s nasty mean girl with all of her snarky, non-PC comments and back-handed compliments, to her dim-witted sidekicks. Each of the “bad moms” also has her own unique personality, and when this trio gets together, it leads to some comic gold. Kathryn Hahn is hilarious as the completely crass mentor of the group, Kristin Bell plays the naive, straight-laced one perfectly, and Mila Kunis serves as the one the audience identifies with most—the one who finally snaps once the stress of everything going on gets to be too much. (We’d all like the freedom to just snap every once in a while!) In addition to the witty, sometimes raunchy, dialogue, there is also a lot of great physical humor. Whether it’s flying spaghetti or a Kristen Bell in pink hoodie being used as a sex demonstration, there’s multiple layers to the humor in every scene. Plus, there’s just something so freeing watching these women just do whatever they want, but it still feels somewhat grounded. This mayhem doesn’t get to a ridiculous, destructive level (well, besides the one scene in the grocery store).
The Blu-ray presentation is fantastic. Colors are rich and bright and the picture is crisp and detailed, and the audio track provides both clear dialogue and an excellent soundtrack. The Blu-ray contains a small-but-entertaining set of bonus material, including a 6 minute gag reel, 16 minutes of hilarious alternate lines and takes, and 24 minutes of interviews with the female cast and their real-life moms. This Combo Pack release comes with both Blu-ray and DVD discs along with a code for a digital copy of the film. The discs are housed in a standard Blu-ray keepcase, along with a cardboard slipcover.
What’s Included:
Film: (1:40:58)
-
Blu-ray:
- 1080p / Widescreen 2.40:1
- Audio: English 7.1 DTS-HD Master Audio
- Subtitles: English SDH
- 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 2.40:1
- Audio: English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround
- Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French
- (for redemption deadline, see NBCUcodes.com)
- HD Digital copy redeemable via UltraViolet (Universal, Flixster, Vudu or CinemaNow) OR iTunes
DVD:
Digital Copy:
Extras:
(The same features can be found on both the Blu-ray and the DVD)
- Gag Reel (6:02)
The cast crack each other up, flub lines, have fun with the green screen, deal with prop malfunctions, and more. - Deleted Scenes (16:36)
Collection of hilarious alternate lines and alternate takes of the characters at their worst. “Perfect Moms” provides more fun, snarky comments from Gwendolyn, Stacy and Vicky; “Bad Dad” shows Mike being a jerk (or just lazy); “Bad Therapist” finds Dr. Karl (Wanda Sykes) holding nothing back while giving relationship advice to Amy and Mike; “Bad Principal” shows what’s on Principal Burr’s (Wendell Pierce) mind when no one else is around; and “Bad Moms” provides a lot more fun with Amy, Carla and Kiki. - Cast & Moms Interviews (23:52)
More footage from the interviews that appear during the film’s closing credits—the female cast and their moms share fun and intimate stories of their own childhoods and parenting moments. Play All or select from “Mila & Elvira”, “Kristen & Lorelei”, “Christina & Nancy”, “Kathryn & Karen, “Jada & Adrienne” and “Annie & Alice”.
Final Thoughts:
Bad Moms is a hilarious comedy with a talented cast of funny ladies. The Blu-ray looks and sounds great, and comes with a slim-but-entertaining set of bonus material—there are a lot of fun alternate takes, and the interviews with the cast and their moms is a nice, unique bonus feature. This film is highly-entertaining, and I can definitely see myself watching it over and over again, finding new reasons to laugh each time!
