The Unseen Movie Review

Christmas With the Kranks

Tim Allen, until a few years ago best known for his lightweight TV sitcom Home Improvement, has in recent years become one of the most bankable stars of kiddie film comedies. He was the voice of galactic hero Buzz Lightyear in the smash-hit Toy Story films, and has also managed to corner the Christmas market through the two Santa Clause movies, where he plays a normal guy forced to become Father Christmas.

Here, he tried to secure the Christmas crown once again with a farcical tale of a husband and wife deciding to skip the stress of Christmas altogether while their daughter’s away. The usual “zany” antics ensue, as they always do in these kinds of films.

Tim Allen is very much an acquired taste. It is very easy to find him dull, self-satisfied and uninspired, especially in a film like this which steals liberally from pretty much every Christmas movie ever made – most notably National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. His fairly monotonous voice and uncanny ability to be exactly the same in every part he ever plays are enough in themselves for many critics to write him off as a one-trick pony. The fact that he always seems to opt for roles where he gets to play single-minded men who realise the error of their ways is just another reason to deride him as a rather boring actor who often chooses rather unoriginal films.

But then, this is not exactly meant to be the most mind-blowingly original movie. If it were attempting to win film buffs over, the money men behind the project would have avoided using a screenplay by Chris Columbus – the rather insipid director of that 1990 Christmas smash-hit Home Alone and the first two Harry Potter movies. They also would probably have chosen more exciting source material than a written-for-screen book by John Grisham, one of Hollywood’s favourite novelist hacks, and a more experienced director than Joe Roth, best known as the producer behind the Young Guns flicks.

In the face of tough competition from the likes of Jim Carrey (in Lemony Snicket), Billy Bob Thornton (in Bad Santa) and Ben Affleck (in Surviving Christmas), unfortunately for Allen it looks like this year he won’t be able to reclaim his Christmas movie crown. This film is just a bit too bog standard to gain any more than mild affection, and Allen is simply too uncharismatic – when faced with a Carrey or a Thornton – to compare favourably.

This isn’t to say that Christmas with the Kranks isn’t a decent enough family movie. For people with young children it should be great – lots of silly slapstick and infantile gags, and some great supporting performances from comic actors of the calibre of Jamie Lee Curtis and Dan Ackroyd – but it is unlikely to achieve the kind of success of Allen’s previous Christmas flicks. Still, well worth a couple of hours to keep the kiddies amused, even if it may fare better next festive season when it’s out on DVD.

posted by Nosemonkey @ 12:00 AM