My Movie Review on Christmas with the Kranks · 2:51pm Dec 17th, 2019
Happy holidays, my friends.
This is your jolly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
And today, for my ninth "Christmas Craze" installment, I'm gonna be presenting to you guys my review on perhaps one of the most underrated Christmas comedies of all-time: "Christmas with the Kranks".
Here's the summary of it:
Having decided that there was no worth in celebrating Christmas at home without their daughter around, Luther and Nora Krank decide to skip Christmas and take a vacation on a Caribbean cruise instead.
This move is much to the shock and anger of their neighbors. Especially that of Vic Frohmeyer, who wants the Kranks to decorate their house in order for the neighborhood to win an award.
Will the Kranks be able to make it through their days of being considered outcasts? Or not?
What's more, is skipping Christmas just to take a vacation really what the Kranks want?
First off, I'd like to say that this film isn't flawless. So, before I get to the positives, I'd like to start this review by listing the only negative I found in this movie, mainly in reference to the negative reputation it has.
The only element that I personally couldn't help but feel disgruntled by was while Nora Krank was wearing her swimsuit during the tanning booth scene. At the top area, I found that much of Nora's breasts seemed indecently exposed, and so I often worked myself into looking away. In whatever case, it felt...inappropriate for a PG-rated film.
However...
The direction by Joe Roth, and the screenplay by Chris Columbus, were all pretty spot-on. It looked like the two of them definitely put their heads together in creating this movie too, particularly according to Columbus not just being screenwriter but co-producer.
The humor that was incorporated throughout was extremely well-executed and fun, and there was an innocence about it that didn't seem mean-spirited even as a slapstick comedy. For instance, the part where Luther was trying to eat and drink not long after having a botox injection was hysterical! I get that the story may seem unusual because of how much the Kranks's neighbors were trying to push them into celebrating Christmas, but that's actually what made it so funny.
The film wasn't without heart and moral either. It teaches that you should put the needs and wants of others above your own, and how great it is to be part of a community that's kind and loving. The final act in particular was extremely heartwarming.
The performances of the cast, the characters, and character development were astounding. I may not know exactly what they look like at a full 100%, but I thought the cast did an excellent job at getting into their parts and generating perfect comedic-timings, particularly Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Dan Aykroyd. The character development of Luther, out of all of them, was the one I enjoyed the most.
The music, composed by John Debney, was additionally enjoyable. I love how Debney was able to capture the spirit of a Christmas-comedy, as well as how emotionally-engaging he made the music to get audiences into the story and reflect the feelings of the characters.
In the end, "Christmas with the Kranks" isn't perfect, but it's actually extremely fun and underrated. If anything, it feels like the only reason this film was so "negatively" received was because people were looking for any opportunity to pick on Tim Allen because of being a Conservative and Republican.
So, I rate "Christmas with the Kranks" 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.
I've honestly never seen this film before.
*Makes a complaint about a scene where possibly too much skin was shown, which costs the movie a 5 star score.
*says that the complaints are because Tim Allen has certain political views.
Color me confused; because this movie came out when overly sexualized characters were more scandalous than being political. In fact: 2004 was a strong year for the Republican Party.
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The point that I’m trying to make is that despite how negatively reviewed Tim Allen’s films often are, they’re actually pretty great. And it seems like the pattern behind why movies with Allen are often negatively reviewed is because of his political views.
Also, how would you feel if you were seeing a certain body part of a person exposed in front of you? Like, a person’s butt?
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And the point I tried to make is that your claim that the movie suffered because of his political leanings is mistaken at best: looking backwards with a modern lens.
American Politics was more civil when this movie came out. The general American Public was more focused on the War On Terror and bipartisan cooperation was more common.
This so called 'Woke Culture' wasn't a thing in 2004, the year of the film's release.
If anything: it's most likely that negative criticism of the movie comes from people with different tastes of humor or people who share your opinions of the human body.
And as far as exposure goes:
If someone chooses to expose themselves then I have equal choice in averting my eyes. As long as no one is trying to force me to watch: I really don't care.
You know those people who say that women should be allowed to nurse their children in public? I'm one of them because I don't overly sexulize the human body. Everyone's got one.
But now I'm curious. Do you find breast feeding to be offensive?
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No. I don’t think it’s offensive. But, it’s something that I don’t think is the most appropriate to see and shouldn’t be publicly viewed. To put it simply, it’s a matter of appropriation.
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I fail to see how it's not appropriate for a mother to nurse her child as nature intended; but to be fair I also fail to see how breasts are considered erotic.
But I'll certainly agree halfway on the subject of discretion when it is reasonable.
I don't know. I guess I wanted to see it when it first came out but my desire to do so waned as I got older and my list of "must watch" got longer.