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It seems that the Christmas season starts earlier every year. Stores set up their Christmas trees in August. Mom pulls out her favorite Christmas CDs on November first. Last week, I actually saw a house fully decorated for the holidays. So I suppose it’s only natural that our first Christmas movie would show up in early November.
Vince Vaughn and Paul Giamatti star in the holiday early bird, Fred Claus, the story of sibling rivalry between saintly Nick (Giamatti) and his unruly big brother, Fred (Vaughn). After years of living in his little brother’s shadow, Fred has given up on the family. Now, he lives in Chicago, where he’s barely maintaining a relationship with his girlfriend, Wanda (Rachel Weisz), and he just keeps moving from one bad get-rich-quick scheme to another.
One day, just before Christmas, Fred finds himself in trouble—again—and the only one who can bail him out of jail is his little brother. This time, though, Nick refuses to help unless Fred heads to the North Pole to work off his debt.
With Christmas just days away, things are frantic at the North Pole. And as Nick struggles to deal with his insubordinate brother, he also has to deal with Clyde (Kevin Spacey), an efficiency expert who’s threatening to shut down his whole operation.
Despite the fact that it’s a Christmas movie that’s released more than six weeks before Christmas (which, let’s face it, is never a good sign), Fred Claus isn’t as bad as I feared it would be. It actually offers a few good laughs, as well as a creative story. But be warned that in order to enjoy the movie, you need to be able to suspend a lot of belief and overlook a lot of holes.
The problems start pretty early on, when you’re supposed to believe that, upon becoming a saint, one immediately stops aging—as does said saint’s family and spouse. Of course, just mentioning that little “rule” only brings up all kinds of other questions—and if you start thinking about them, they’re sure to drive you crazy. So let’s not discuss whether Santa and Mrs. Santa can have kids—and, if so, whether they’d always be infants—shall we? But Fred Claus is filled with irritating little liberties like that. It’s pretty ridiculous at times, and the writing is anything but solid. And it’s packed with all kinds of cheap shots and comedy clichés—group therapy, sibling rivalry, and even Vaughn himself, who can’t seem to let go of his character from Swingers.
Still, when I think back at some of the other holiday comedies I’ve endured (like last year’s Deck the Halls, for instance), I have to admit that this one wasn’t nearly as painful. In fact, this one actually made me laugh a few times. And, well, I tend to look kindly upon any movie that features an evil Kevin Spacey (or, really, any Kevin Spacey at all). So Fred Claus may not be destined to become a Christmas classic, but as far as brainless holiday comedies go, you can definitely do worse.
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