With the limited shelf space for holiday movies, the consensus in Hollywood is that one Christmas-themed pic per year is more than enough. However, 2008 brings you an embarrassment of Christmas riches in the form of two craptacular holiday movies that are rehashed, unfunny, and not exactly filled with holiday spirit.
The biggest culprit is inexplicable box office smash Four Christmases. Vince Vaughn and John Favreau play basically the same characters they’ve been playing since Made in 2001. You get the feeling Vaughn and Favreau just made the flick so they could hang out together. After directing Elf in 2003, Favreau must have decided Christmas movies were easy money, and convinced Vaughn to take part in this holiday tradition: Vaughn—who went on to make Fred Claus, 2007’s holiday non-classic—has now starred in two godawful pics two years in a row.
The oddest aspect of Four Christmases is the casting of Reese Witherspoon—she’s supposed to be Vaughn’s long-time girlfriend, but their chemistry is nonexistent. It is difficult to believe a character with type-A personality tics, would be in love with the bullshit-talking Vaughn character.
The film has less to do with Christmas and more to do with being a rip-off of Meet the Parents. Simply substitute some casting choices, subtract a few sight gags, and rotate in a Christmas background, and they’re the same movie. As such, the movie doesn’t hold a sprig of mistletoe, even compared with Favreau’s Elf, and certainly not against any actual holiday classics.
2008’s second place holiday movie, in every respect, is Nothing Like the Holidays, which is like a Puerto Rican take on The Family Stone. If you don’t get enough family fighting, fatal diseases, and special Iraq war moments in your real life, why not watch a Christmas movie about it?
As a movie Nothing Like the Holidays is more interesting than Four Christmases because of the interesting cultural touches, and the actual family moments, like the three siblings ending up in the attic together talking shit about each other— which are genuinely moving and intimate. On the whole, though, Nothing Like the Holidays is too heavy-handed. Nothing will stop a movie from entering the classic holiday cannon like being inescapably depressing.
Don’t go see these movies. TBS will play 24 hours of A Christmas Story. Admit it: it’s the Christmas movie you really want. Pole licking, B.B. guns and angry parents: what’s not to love?
