An average Christmas with the Kranks

It's that time of year again, and Columbia Pictures could not help but provide the average family with an average holiday film. Perfect for the movie-going mother, father and little Jimmy, Christmas with the Kranks provides audiences with some elementary laughs and the perfect holiday message: Christmas is a time for sharing, giving and racing with that old hag at the corner grocer for the last holiday ham.

When Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) Krank's daughter Blair (Julie Gonzalo) joins the Peace Corps and heads off to Peru, her parents decide to skip Christmas and instead escape on a ten-day cruise. Unfortunately for the Kranks, their neighbors, headed by Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd), decide that skipping Christmas is just out of the question. Soon, Luther and Nora find themselves dodging acquaintances left and right, including ten-year-olds protesting their failure to set up their seven-foot Frosty the Snowman sculpture.

Packed and ready to leave, Luther and Nora receive a call from Blair saying that she will be home at eight with her new fiancé Enique (Rene Lavan), just in time for her mother's annual Christmas Eve party. With less than a day to go, Luther and Nora frantically reverse their plans and struggle to put together a Christmas party filled with food, friends and decorations.

Curtis gives one of her most hilarious, if not most interesting, performances as the obsessive, perfectionist mother who just cannot live without a dazzling nine-foot Christmas tree and flawless holiday party. Allen, by comparison, is acceptable as the quintessential Grinch.

Despite of the short chuckles and elementary humor stylings of Allen and Curtis, Christmas with the Kranks can be seriously appreciated by obsessive mothers (or survivors of obsessive mothers) who always strive for the perfect Christmas. During the first part of the film, Mommy Krank must fight her compulsive urges to purchase her usual invitations and holiday cards weeks before Christmas.

Unfortunately, the second half of the film is where Christmas with the Kranks takes its place among trite holiday movies. As Blair's arrival draws closer, the kids put down their protest signs and Frohmeyer inspires the entire block to pitch in and help the Kranks in their hour of need. The movie, like every other Christmas special, tries to demonstrate how much fun it is to help each other out and play nice.

Being a stereotypical Christmas film, the movie has a soundtrack that sounds like something stolen from Home Alone, with bells and lots of violins. Unfortunately, unlike Home Alone, the film was devoid of any Christmas music. Staying in the vein of the Macaulay Culkin film, the scene where Luther and Nora hide from carolers in the basement and are spooked by the sight of their bright-eyed, seven-foot Frosty is remarkably similar to the scene where the young Culkin is frightened by a glowing boiler.

Regardless of its shortcomings, Christmas with the Kranks is not a bad film, nor is it good. As it stands, director Joe Roth has just created this year's Christmas movie to enjoy during those pre-Christmas family bonding sessions.

Christmas with the Kranks (100 minutes) is rated PG for language and suggestive content and is playing everywhere.