Cinematic Disasters - Christmas with the Kranks

 

Well....it was only of matter of time until I had to do another Cinematic Disaster. Let's get this over with.

Christmas with the Kranks is a 2004 Christmas comedy film and based on John Grisham's 2001 novel Skipping Christmas. The movie was produced by Revolution Studios, 1492 Pictures, and Columbia Pictures and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. Christmas with the Kranks was written by Chris Columbus and directed by Joe Roth.

The story is Luther and his wife Nora have decided to skip their usual Christmas traditions and go on a Caribbean cruise instead. However, word quickly spreads to their neighbors and they are not happy about it. Soon it's a war between the Kranks and their neighborhood.

My Thoughts

One of the worst things about Christmas with the Kranks is the overall premise. Everybody in this movie is so shocked and disgusted that the Kranks would dare go on vacation as suppose to celebrate Christmas. Sure there's suspension of disbelief but that can only go so far and this is one of those examples. Hell, this is such a shock to the world that in the movie the Kranks skipping Christmas makes the front page news......I'm not joking that actually happened.

The other thing that makes the movie awful is there aren't any unlikable characters. The Kranks seemed fine at first but then they turn into assholes. Then there are the neighbors...oh boy the neighbors. They're insane. Like, absolutely insane. They harass the Kranks to no end and they're so pissed about the Kranks not putting up their Frosty decoration that they stand outside their house chanting "Free Frosty". What is in the water that these people are drinking that they think this is okay?

What I also hate about the film is there are a lot of scenes that are pointless and are just there to pad out the runtime. For instance, Luther has to buy a Christmas tree, he buys it, notices it looks like crap, throws it away, and decides to buy one off his neighbor. Why did he do the last one to begin with? Because the filmmakers needed to hit that 90 minute mark that's why.

Another aspect that made Christmas with the Kranks an awful movie was the horrible attempts at comedy. None of the jokes. I didn't laugh once throughout this entire movie, not even a chuckle.

The other piece to this movie that made it unwatchable was how the wasted the talent was. Nobody from Tim Allen to Dan Aykroyd should've been in this movie. Sure they TIRED to make it work even though the script is terrible but despite that they just couldn't pull it off. I felt so bad for them.

The last thing I'll criticize the movie for is the horrible message it has. It was basically if you skip the amazing holiday that Christmas you're an awful person. That's not only a terrible thing to tell the audience but it also doesn't make sense. I know/seen plenty of people who skipped Christmas and did something else, and guess what the world still kept spinning, nobody dropped dead all of a sudden, and Santa still gave presents to all the good boys and girls.

Christmas with the Kranks definitely deserved every harsh comment it got both during it's initial release and people who review to this day. The premise sucks, the characters are terrible, there were a lot of scenes that were pointless, the jokes didn't work, the cast despite being talented was wasted, and the overall message was a horrible one.

My final rating is Destroy It!

Once again I know I didn't go into detail about the movie but this was a time crunch thing. I was watching/writing/reviewing other movies so one had to be cut short and this was the one. Anyhow, that's going to do it for me. Come back on Monday, Dec 21st for my A Look Back at review of The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl. Until then enjoy the rest of your day.