What is the Worst Christmas Movie Ever? CC2K Debates
Written by: The CinCitizens
Deck The Halls – By Kristen Lopez
I must confess the only reason I joined in on this metapiece was so I could have an excuse to watch Deck the Halls. What the hell was I thinking you ask? My little brother (who’s 10) rented this when it came out and watched about twenty minutes before proclaiming it the worst movie he’d ever seen (did I mention he’s 10?). Sadly I didn’t get to partake in a ten-year-old’s worst nightmare since it was late to Blockbuster. Luckily, with this assignment, I was finally able to get the movie myself, yet keep my street cred (or at least household cred) by claiming that I was doing so “for educational purposes.”
If this still does not fully explain my desire to see a film my pre-pubescent sibling hates, I answer with two words: Kristin Chenoweth. As an avid Pushing Daisies fan, I went in hot pursuit of any and all films starring the great Kristin (Olive Snook) Chenoweth, and sadly she’s made some stinkers like this (and RV, but let’s not go there). I can tolerate any movie – especially if it’s Christmas-centric – if it has some heart and redemption behind it. Sadly not even Ms. Chenoweth can inspire this utterly unlikable piece of crap.
Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick) is a mild-mannered optometrist living an idyllic suburban life with his wife (Kristin Davis) and two children. Proudly proclaiming himself the guy in charge of Christmas his eve has a calendar laying out exactly what they’re going to do each day in December. Buddy Hall (Danny Devito) moves into the house across the street from the Finches with his wife (Kristin Chenoweth) and two teenage daughters. Hall is in an unhappy job and is constantly looking for projects to give his life meaning, so when his daughters find a website that allows you to see your house from space he decides to cover his house in Christmas lights. This shakes up Steve’s way of life to the point where the two are constantly butting heads to see which one is the bigger Christmas nut, pushing their families even further away in the process.
I mentioned in my intro that I can tolerate almost any Christmas movie as long as it has heart. Sure Kevin McAllister (Macaulay Culkin) is a bit of a spoiled brat in Home Alone but at the end he realizes how important his family is and truly redeems himself. It wasn’t until the second movie that I realize he really was just a spoiled brat. Christmas movies are supposed to allow you to relate to the characters, to say “yeah I have moments like that.” In the end you cheer the heroes on as they quest to learn the true meaning of Christmas.
Deck the Halls lacks that core principal in its execution. Broderick’s character, Steve, starts the film as your standard absentee father who tries to make good, typical of almost all movies like this (where are the mothers who are like this, never see those do you?). His daughter Maddie has no friends and doesn’t really interact with others because her father is so protective. Steve’s son Carter is having a midlife crisis at the age of ten and can’t seem to find his place in life. Kelly, Steve’s wife, simply smiles and says “Aw honey” a lot. This family is so boring and cliché that I knew right away how this whole movie was going to go. Steve is completely bland and dull. A lot of this has to do with Broderick’s acting. He is constantly making faces that make him look like he’s about to vomit and he’s incredibly off-putting onscreen. Steve doesn’t have any tender moments with his family in the beginning, thereby making him seem all the more distant, and you never truly care about him. His wife just smiles and never calls him on his shit and his children are standard movie children with standard movie problems. There’s nothing unique to make you connect with the family which sucks because they’re the ones you need to root for in the end.
The Halls are somewhat interesting but not by much. Buddy is a man who just can’t find his calling in life; every time he fails at a job he moves the family. His wife Tia tries to be supportive but desperately wants to make life work in their new town. The hardest part in dealing with the Halls is that there’s no way someone like Kristin Chenoweth would be with Danny Devito. Not just based on appearances but because Chenoweth plays her character so fun and fancy free while Devito just makes funny faces and spends time with his lights. It is easier to identify with Buddy, mostly due to the fact that almost any adult has had trouble with finding that career that gives them meaning, but once Buddy gets the idea about the lights there’s no “Mr. Nice Guy.”
The film continues to go downward once Buddy and Steve get at each other’s throats. The competitions the two get into are downright ridiculous, I mean who ever tried to settle a battle with speed skating? It doesn’t help matters that these guys drive both their families away with their fighting. What kind of neighbors fight so fiercely that marriages can be destroyed…and over some goddamn lights? That’s what’s irritating about Deck the Halls; you spend so much time yelling at the screen over the issues that you aren’t connecting with the so-called “heroes.”
By the end I really didn’t care who came out on top. Of course it has a typical Hollywood ending where everybody says they’re sorry (although I have no idea why the family would feel the need to apologize to these jerks) and the fathers make time for their kids and all that feel-good crap. In a good Christmas film the redemption seems true, that these characters have truly seen the error of their ways. In this particular film one gets the feeling that the characters see the error of their ways because they have nobody telling them not to fight, it seems like a reverse psychology deal. If you can handle a film that will make you angry after you watch it then gather the kids together to watch Deck the Halls, I guarantee you’ll never want to put up Christmas lights ever again. In a time of giving and goodwill toward men, this film set Christmas movies back at least 20 years, and that’s saying something.