Christmas With The Kranks (2004)

With only 2 days left until Christmas ‘05, Heather and I decided to check out the latest Chrismas film to hit DVD.

While Heather and I were both big fans of The Santa Clause and Santa Clause 2 (2002) that started Tim Allen’s movie career, we haven’t been too impressed with his later films (Jungle 2 Jungle, etc.). So, when we first heard about Christmas With The Kranks, it wasn’t really on the top of our must-see list. But, since the previews made it look pretty funny, we decided to give it a try anyway.

So would Christmas With The Kranks keep our holiday spirits high, or should we have just stuck with watching Polar Express (2004) again?

Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis are a rather odd couple on-screen, and don’t really ever seem to connect. Most of the time, the viewer will be distracted, thinking that the two of them are headed for divorce-ville. Yes, they are that unconnected. The viewer will be so distracted by that, most of the jokes in the film will go by mostly unnoticed. Aside from that, they don’t do that bad of a job in Christmas With The Kranks, but it’s definitely not the best work either of them has done, either.

Dan Aykroyd, who seems to be a bit more washed-up as an actor each time he shows up in a movie these days, contributes little. The rest of the cast, including a very ill-used Cheech Marin, also don’t do much to improve on the acting in the film either. Most everyone just seems to be going through the motions, without putting too much effort into it.

While John Grisham novels have translated decently to film in the past (The Firm, The Client, etc.), either Christmas With The Kranks was a bad adaptation, or he was having an off-day when he wrote Skipping Christmas. Either way, this film is so dull the viewer will most likely stick through to the end just to see if it gets any better.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t really improve, but a dedicated viewer will catch a few worthwhile scenes – including a comedic restaurant sequence right after Luther gets Botox injections. The end wraps up too neatly, trying to be a tearjerker and a holiday-inspired movie all at the same time. Some of it works – some just seems thrown in at the last minute.

The really surprising thing about Christmas With The Kranks is its’ complete turnaround in the last half hour or so of the film. While most of the film conentrates on the Kranks trying to skip Christmas despite the efforts of everyone around them, the last half hour or so showcases a total switch when they discover their daughter is indeed returning for the Holidays. Suddenly, they are in a rush to accomplish everything they were trying to avoid the entire film. It’s rather annoying.

Maybe it’s trying to teach a lesson about the Holiday season, but about the only thing that comes through is this: Christmas is unescapable, no matter how hard you try. Maybe the book/film is remarking on the absurd lengths retail chains go through to try to get customers to buy their products during that time of year, or the equally absurd lengths consumers go through to get the most sought-after presents. Then again, maybe they just ran out of material before the end, and had to jump to a totally different plot to fill up the last half hour.

With the very unmatched couple of Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis leading a barely-there cast and a plot that suddenly does a complete turnaround two-thirds of the way through the film, Christmas With The Kranks isn’t worth much. While the girls will love the tearjerker subplot at the end, and both guys and gals will crack up at Allen’s Botox-induced eating habits, the rest of the movie will be spent slowly drifiting deeper and deeper into a state of boredom.

After seeing the film, it seems it should be renamed to Skipping Christmas With The Kranks. That way, we’d all be forewarned.