With films like The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause"" and ""Unaccompanied Minors"" hitting theatres this Christmas season, ""Deck the Halls"" looked to be this year's holiday hit. It followed the basic formula for a family comedy, added a dose of Christmas flavor and cast fresh faces to the Christmas movie genre""stars popular enough to put an end to Tim Allen's dominance over the Christmas world. All of this should have made ""Deck the Halls"" a season favorite. Instead, it is nothing more than a subpar family flick with very few laughs, a pretty useless plot and an excess of Christmas lights.
The story itself is not all that special. Matthew Broderick plays Steve Finch, the family man that knows everything there is to know about Christmas. Need advice on Christmas tree decorating? Steve Finch is your man. His role as the ""Christmas guy"" is rudely interrupted when Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito) and his family move in next door.
Moving is not new for the Hall family, as Buddy cannot seem to land his dream job or find what he is good at. In his quest to do something of great significance, Buddy decides to adorn his whole house with Christmas lights, all so his house can be seen from outer space. Talk about an utterly ridiculous goal.
Admittedly, the light display is beautiful and definitely brings out the Christmas spirit, but putting up the lights cuts into Buddy's responsibility at work, and not to mention his credit cards, which only reinforces the fact that Buddy cannot get it together to keep a job. Meanwhile, Steve's jealousy is often times an overreaction that comes off too annoying for sympathy.
The wives, played by Kristin Davis and Kristin Chenoweth, are the one saving grace. Davis plays the level-headed Kelly Finch, starring opposite of her ""Sex and the City"" co-star, Sarah Jessica Parker's husband. As a cosmopolitan singleton in ""Sex and the City,"" Davis stepped into a more mature role with great ease in ""The Shaggy Dog"" earlier this year. In ""Deck the Halls,"" Davis is able to pin down the motherly, non-desperate housewife role once again.
Chenoweth also masters the housewife persona, which she did so in a more bodacious, soccer-mom fashion in ""RV."" She brings out her bright, bubbly blonde persona again playing Tia Hall. And let's not forget her ""twins,"" which never fail to grab attention. However, Chenoweth's ta-ta's have to share the spotlight with her character's set of twin daughters. Tall, blonde and beautiful just like their mother""well, minus the tall part. Kelly and Sabrina Aldridge, most known for being in the MTV reality bust ""8th and Ocean,"" are just mere eye candy for the teenage boys forced to see the movie with their little siblings. Their Christmas dance routine a la ""Mean Girls"" is not original enough to be a standout scene.
The jokes and comedic scenes are too predictable to be funny. At times, there isn't even a point to some of the jokes. The biggest joke, however, is when Chenoweth busts out in a Christmas song. There's no denying she has the voice of an angel, but breaking out into song in every movie of hers is just too much. ""Deck the Halls"" is a mediocre Christmas concoction that should not be seen, even from space.
