AC21: Random Movie Review - Christmas with the Kranks

With us now in the week of Christmas itself, I wanted to conclude the last few days of my advent calendar posts to look at two films showing us exactly what we can't do at Christmas this year as well as a newly released video game and a Christmas special that pits Christians against Jews with hilarious results. The first of these films is one of those films that Krampus was able to do better in terms of setting the tone of the film in only the opening scene. In other words, this is one of those bad Christmas films that has a good cast, but nothing else good about it (well there may be some other things too). So let's have a look shall we:

Luthor (played by Buzz Lightyear himself, Tim Allen) and Nora Krank (played by the original scream queen, Jamie Lee Curtis) go to the airport to see off their daughter Blair (played by Julie Gonzalo) who is off to do a Peace Corps assignment in Peru. As it's just after Thanksgiving, Luthor and Nora decide they don't want to spend Christmas without their daughter and decide to skip the holiday by going on a cruise instead. This news gets a mixed reaction from their neighbours who ultimately start a campaign to force the Kranks to decorate for the holidays. But chaos starts happening when Blair announces that she is in fact coming home for Christmas after all and with a special someone. So the Kranks desperately begin changing plans as time is running out before she arrives home with some things going well, but other things not so much.

Most Christmas films out there are comedies and very few of them are actually funny. This has some funny moments and the actors do well with what they got, but it's not all that great. Decorating homes in a short space of time can be funny, but only if it's not forced upon and has some legit jokes going for it. So yeah not a great festive film, but may have done better if more work was done on the screenplay and other things. 6/10