Monday, December 23, 2013

Days of December Christmas Movie Watch-a-thon Day 12: Deck the Halls

**I lifted this from my former blog. At this time, I was rating the shows/movies I was watching by assigning them lumps of coal or sugar plums, haha!


Well, I can't even remember where I saw this, but I saw Deck the Halls on someone's blog recently, and decided I wanted to watch it.

So, I rented it.



Oh my goodness! I can't believe the amazing assortment of cast members in this movie!

Matthew Broderick, Danny DeVito, Kristin Davis, Kristin Chenoweth, Alia Shawkat, and Jorge Garcia are all in this movie!

Uh-oh, "How bad could it be?" is NEVER a good thing to say. Especially if you're in a movie.

Hahahahaha! "I especially like the way you've duct-taped the antlers to the horses' heads."

I love the holiday cards!

So, this was a funny movie, and I enjoyed it, but there was a thick layer of cheese, sprinkled with some lame acting that really made the movie a little less magical. Chenowith is someone I love, but kind of only because she was in Wicked. Everything else I've seen her in, she has played the same role: high-maintenance, exaggeratedly blond, scantily clad, and ditzy, though well-meaning. She plays it well, but I like to imagine her with more depth, and it's hard when she's in these roles. I guess, despite the shortcomings of her characters, she manages to endear herself slightly, so that's skill. As for DeVito, how many times will he play a sleazy, aging man with a smokin' hot bimbo wife? Broderick and Davis are horrible, in my opinion. Neither one of them seem to actually have a soul, or a personality. I don't believe their marriage, parenting, pet peeves, or passions. The only thing Broderick has been good in that I've seen was Ferris Bueller's Day Off. And I haven't seen that in years to know if that's an accurate appraisal of the movie. Maybe he has had some plastic surgery? I don't feel like his face moved much. Anyone else feel that way?

Other than the above (which I realize can sound scathing), I enjoyed the concept of the movie. It felt like it had many of the makings of a Christmas movie classic. I think, perhaps, if they had just cast someone other than Broderick and Davis, the movie could have been salvaged. But, when your main character and his wife don't actually appear to have a heart, it's hard to get attached, or to feel like they've changed at all at the end of the movie, if they've been robots the whole film.

Wow. Reading this, it's strange because it sounds like I hated the movie. Oddly enough, I didn't. Some of the jokes were hilarious, and, as I said, the plot was promising albeit poorly executed (IMO). Personally, I have to rate this film 2.5 sugar plums out of 5, with 1 lump of coal thrown in for good measure.

I'm glad I watched it, but it's not "classic" status.

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