Christmas With The Kranks -- 2004 -- PG

Based on the book entitled SKipping Christmas by John grisham (of all people), this is a film that deals with one extreme after another, and not always in a totally believable fashion.

The basic premise follows a couple whose daughter is gone, and so in order to save money, they opt to skip out of Christmas and take a cruise instead (saving them $3000 overall for the Christmas season). While the premise is clever enough, it is taken to such an extreme that believability falters in the presentation.

I can understand, perhaps, not doing a lot of the expensive things that makes Christmas such a great expendature, but they refuse to do the inexpensive and even free stuff just to be good neighbors or friends. They completely shut out the world in order to boycott Christmas, which did not strike me as the intention. Additionally, the wife is both ok and not ok with this throughout the film at times praising his genious and at other times condemning his stupidity but all the while playing along with his idea.

Many of the situations are funny and decent conceptions, but too many times, the jokes are not played out to their fullest potential. It's there and then gone.

It's difficult to say whether Tim Allen's character is supposed to be likable or not. He spends a fair amount of time being a Grinch, and one wonders whether he really enjoys Christmas as an annual occasion. Near the end, his personality begins flowing in one direction only to take a complete turn to complete an almost forgotten subplot and deliver the message of the film and get him his grand character development moment. It would have been more beautiful if he remained as he had been throughout the film instead of going more with the flow. 

Act III begins with a great twist to it that jump starts the momentum of the film and carries us to the end, but Act II almost gets dull with the continuous motion of "here's another Christmas tradition", "No", "here's another Christmas tradition", "No." And let's take a moment to prepare for the cruise, and back to the tradition-no routine. 

So, bottom line. Is this the greatest film the world has ever known? No. Does it make for an amusing film to watch with the family so laughs are shared and a good is had by all. Sure. The comedy is easy and funny. The story is easy to follow. It has a feel-good, sappy, Christmas-movie ending. So, if you want a film to just watch to escape another round of Rudolph. Here you go. If you're looking for an award-winning Christmas movie, time to put It's a Wonderful Life back in.