What I didn't like about this movie!

I watched this for the first time last night, and left less than impressed. I found it one of the silliest (not in a good way), unrealistic Christmas films I have ever seen.

Now, before people reel off to me more unrealistic Christmas films than this, I don't count when the premise is unrealistic to begin with, like a "Christmas Carol" where Scrooge is visited by three ghosts. I don't expect realism when the premise isn't totally realistic to begin with. But I am sure that it is possible that a family skip Christmas and leave on holiday, and the neighbours are disappointed to not have a Christmas party at their house that year. But this was totally OTT and absurd.

In an early scene, JLC's character tells Tim Allen's character to stop off and get her white chocolate to make a Christmas treat. Firstly, Tim Allen complains about getting out in the rain, when it is spitting (it's only water) and not having an umbrella. He unrealistically gets splashed by a car driving over a puddle, with more water than you normally would cop. He forgets the white chocolate. The wife roars at him for not asking the butcher where the chocolate is located (like Luther is supposed to know that), and he goes out again and heaps of water falls on top of him when he leaves.

This scene started to OTTness.

The picture got sillier and sillier.

I will get a lot of backlash for saying this, but I thought Jamie Lee Curtis was terrible in this. Her overreactions to everything, whether it be screaming at Luther for not asking the butcher where the chocolate is kept, when her daughter calls, or when the neighbors are hassling her, and she acts like she will crawl into a fetal position any moment. Her facial expressions and carry-on aren't funny, but makes her character seem like a kook.

Everything else is over-the-top too. The neighbors' reactions to the Kranks going away (in real life, people go away for Christmas all the time, and no-one has a problem with it), the kids making death threats for not putting Frosty in the front yard, and the Kranks skipping Christmas being in the newspaper (like any real newspaper would bother to report this). Nothing screamed of this being how real people act.

Also, for weeks the Kranks hold their resolve to skip Christmas, yet drop the idea the moment the daughter wants Christmas. You can tell that they have never told her "No" in their lives. The parents deserve a holiday, and Luther's idea of her housesitting is a good one. I mean, it isn't like they planned the Carribbean after she said she would be home, which could be poor form. They already had it planned, so any child worth their salt would tell her parents to "Go For It!".

Also, there are few likeable characters in this movie. The Kranks annoyed me, because Luther was obsessive about going to the Carribean and his wife acts like a screaming shrew who will come apart at the seams at a moment's notice. The neighbors are even worse. I didn't enjoy any performances in this movie whatsoever.

It would have worked better if the neighbors meant well, and had their hearts in the right place, but were disappointed about the Kranks going, and acted angrily initially, but then were happy for them. Or if there had been a series of misunderstandings, and the Kranks took the neighbors hassling them as bullying, rather than them being good-natured but a tad obsessive. I could then like this
film more. But everyone seemed so nasty, so when they got together in the end, it seemed too unrealistic that everyone would change their tune.

As what is the story with the daughter and everyone in the neighborhood's love for her. She was just in the Peace Corps, big deal. If they had written her as being a young Hollywood movie star, for example, the neighbors reaction would ring more true, as people act like that towards a celebrity, and the neighbors helping the Kranks out would be to impress the daughter. Again, their reaction to her seems over the top.

The biggest problem is that it isn't funny. There is no subtlety to the humor, and the obvious humor isn't funny even when it happens. I find something like "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" much funnier. His neighbors are meant to be annoying, Clark Griswald is well-intentioned but a klutz, and there are a lot of subtle sight gags in the movie. It isn't overly sentimental, but not nasty either, and wears its heart in the right place, but most of all, is funny. Unlike "Christmas With The Kranks"

I am not even knocking the premise of the film. It could have worked, if everyone didn't try so hard and fail so often. It needed to be more nuanced. I haven't even mentioned the poor message it sent, because that has already been addressed elsewhere, and the poor acting, unrealistic situations and OTT antics made me dislike this film. With better direction, acting and scripting of the comic situations, it could have been a much better film than it turned out to be.