PREMIERE.COM'S REVIEW (posted 11/23/04)

When a van full of Christmas carolers arrives in Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) Krank's Chicago neighborhood, the cheery soprano in the front seat takes one look at the only house on the block with no colored lights, no tacky plastic lawn ornaments, and no rooftop Frosty, and asks, "What? Are they Jewish?" Ho, ho, ho! No, Virginia, they're not Jewish. They're skipping Christmas, which, according to Luther's calculations, will save the Kranks $6,132, enough money to escape the holiday madness and take a 10-day cruise to the Caribbean instead.

Sounds like a good idea to me: no parties, no presents, no family obligations, no eggnog hangovers—none of which have anything to do with the holiday, anyway. But the Kranks' neighbors beg to differ, especially cranky old Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Aykroyd), who's like the friendly neighborhood drill sergeant. When Luther stiffs the local Boy Scout troop out of their annual $75 Christmas tree sale, bristle-topped Frohmeyer shifts into action, organizing the community against the Scrooge-spirited free-thinkers. Comedy, in the loosest sense of the term, ensues.

But Kranks sides with the neighbors, not the Kranks, which makes this so-called laughfest feel more like a painful exercise in conformity. Even Bad Santa, which tackled the same all-too-easy target of suburban Christmas customs, was able to address the issue without feeling so hopelessly one-note. Surely screenwriter Chris Columbus, who wrote the cleverly subversive Christmas movie Gremlins, could've managed more than this routine assembly of sub-sitcom-level jokes about Botox injections, tanning-salon shenanigans (I'm still not sure how either relates to Christmas), icy sidewalks, grocery-store races, and a frozen neighborhood cat.

And yet the guy behind me thought Christmas with the Kranks was one of the funniest Christmas movies ever, hee-hawing throughout and even squealing like a seven-year-old girl in parts. So clearly it's doing something right. From where I sat, Kranks is the type of grim holiday movie that reminds you of all that is noxious and insincere about the Christmas season and then chases it down with a sickly-sweet reversal in which the Kranks have to suck up to their neighbors in order to pull off an 11th-hour Christmas party. Personally, the best thing about skipping Christmas is getting to dismiss lame movies like this and concentrating instead on the great award-worthy fare that hits theaters this time of year.

—Peter Debruge