Christmas With The Kranks is the sort of film that leaves you thinking Ebenezer Scrooge might have had the right idea about the festive season.
Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:129
Fresh:6
Rotten:123
Average Rating:2.8/10
Consensus: A mirthless movie as fresh as last year's fruit cake, Christmas with the Kranks is a course, garish comedy that promotes conformity.
Runtime: 1 hr 39 mins
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: The Kranks have always celebrated a picture-perfect Christmas. But with their only daughter, Blair (Julie Gonzalo), away from home on her Peace Corps assignment, Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Luther... The Kranks have always celebrated a picture-perfect Christmas. But with their only daughter, Blair (Julie Gonzalo), away from home on her Peace Corps assignment, Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) and Luther (Tim Allen) are suffering from empty nest syndrome and decide to skip Christmas in favor of a Caribbean cruise. But their neighbors, led by Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Akroyd), take Christmas very seriously and are none too happy about the Kranks' boycott. In this neighborhood where every house is decorated to the hilt and has a Frosty on the roof, skipping Christmas is virtually a crime. And just as the Kranks are preparing for their Christmas Day departure, they get a call from their daughter who announces that she is coming home for Christmas after all. Suddenly, all systems are go for their annual Christmas Eve party and a normal--highly festive--holiday. Will the Kranks be able to pull together a perfect Christmas for Blair in just a few hours, or will she discover their plan to skip Christmas? Directed by Joe Roth (AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS) and based on a John Grisham novel, this film also features appearances by Cheech Marin, Caroline Rhea, and Felicity Huffman. [More]
Starring: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, Erik Per Sullivan
Starring: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Dan Aykroyd, Erik Per Sullivan, Cheech Marin, Jake Busey, M. Emmet Walsh
Director: Joe Roth
Director: Joe Roth
Screenwriter: Chris Columbus
Producer: Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe, Michael Barnathan
Composer: John Debney
Studio: Sony Pictures Entertainment
Reviews for Christmas with the Kranks
See Joe Roth's movie and you'll understand the true demeaning of Christmas.
[A] comedy so broad it barely dents its targets and a patronising moral conclusion that goes against everything its protagonists originally stood for.
With clumsy sight gags the only humour on offer, the temptation to mutter 'Bah humbug' is overwhelming.
Below average comedy that remains watchable thanks to a likeable cast but is very low on laughs.
Should you spend Christmas With the Kranks? Well, perhaps if you're an adolescent boy, or you have nothing better to do, then go for it. Otherwise, make other holiday plans.
Kranks lacks that basic kernel of credibility that even a goofy farce needs to work.
This one is a veritable celebration of intolerance, disguised as a joyous holiday film.
Christmas with the Kranks wants to toss out the holiday fruitcake but eat it, too.
A nightmare vision of a theist, conformist America... It's like 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers,' except we're expected to root for the pod people.
Phony, disingenuous family entertainment, suffocated by its green bean casserole approach to Middle America, spineless cardboard characters and paper-thin plot 'twists.'
As with average TV fare, moments of genuine humor are rare, and character development can best be described as perfunctory.
As I write this...I have just walked out on Christmas With the Kranks after roughly 45 minutes of mind-numbingly humorless, sitcom barrel-bottom idiocy.
If Christmas means spending it with the irascible, over-the-top Kranks, then taking a Caribbean cruise really does sound like a much better deal.
A dreadful movie, and if you've seen the advertisements you've already seen the laughs -- all three of them -- it has to offer.
Latest News for Christmas with the Kranks
December 20, 2007:
Vatican Gloats Over Weak Performance of The Golden Compass
Attention, filmgoers who have seen and enjoyed The Golden Compass: According to The Vatican, you're either "dishonest" or you haven't been "gifted with a critical spirit." More...
November 02, 2006:
Critical Consensus: "Borat" Best Reviewed Film Of Year: High-Five!; "Flushed Away" Worth A Spin; "Santa Clause 3" Gets Coal
This week at the movies brings us the profound discoveries of a great Kazak journalist ("Borat," starring Sacha Baron Cohen), a battle between Santa and Jack Frost... More...
December 15, 2005:
Critical Consensus: A Sly "Family Stone," A Towering "Kong"
This week at the movies, we have a giant ape {"King Kong"} and some yuletide dramedy ("The Family Stone"). Will the critics go bananas for these flicks? More...
October 20, 2005:
Trailer Bulletin: Freedomland
From director Joe Roth and screenwriter Richard Price comes "Freedomland," an apparently racially-charged kidnapping thriller that stars Samuel L. Jackson, Julianne... More...
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