Natalie Houalla
It’s that time of year again! Shopping sprees, holiday cheer, and, most notorious of them all, holiday movies.
“Deck the Halls,” starring Danny DeVito and Matthew Broderick, fits in perfectly with the mood of other dysfunctional family holiday movies done in the past.
The movie, directed by John Whitesell, is aimed at a younger audience, suggested around 9 years of age, yet some jokes had some suggestive themes only understandable to adults.
The movie, which was rated-PG, had only a few minor parts that were worth a chuckle.
Unfortunately, for the most part, the movie seemed to be very cliché, monotonous and lacked any climax.
“Deck the Halls” is about the perfect portrait of a family who begins competing with the new, and not so classy, neighbors across the street to see who is more into the Christmas spirit.
While the new neighbor, DeVito, tries to decorate his house with lavish Christmas lights, his neighbor, Broderick, tries to ruin the elaborate light decorations.
Once the families fall apart, and the neighbors become enemies, DeVito and Broderick finally learn the true meaning of Christmas and how to appreciate their families.
Many parts of the film have been seen in other movies or are very similar to other Christmas movies, for instance: a Christmas tree catching on fire, borrowing or stealing someone’s Christmas tree, children of families getting along, but the parents fighting or competing or teenage girls dressing up in skimpy Santa costumes dancing to a classic Christmas song.
Some parts of the movie were very similar to “Christmas with the Kranks,” starring Tim Allen.
“Deck the Halls” attempted to create an idea of morals brought on by the holiday season by proving that caroling, putting up Christmas lights and snow-filled fun was what made Christmas a pleasurable holiday.
In any good movie, there is always a memorable scene. But sadly, “Deck the Halls” lacks any rhythm or anything to remember.
What is always great, though, is when something happens in the movie that obviously was a blooper or actually happened and the director just kept it in.
The one blooper that made the small audience laugh was when one of the young actors was racing down a set of icy, snowy steps, slid and caught himself.
That was one of the only scenes anyone laughed at because it was an actual mistake, no offense to the kid.
And of course, anyone getting hurt seems to be funny to most these days.
A bit of an over-exaggeration in the film was when DeVito’s character put on thousands of dollars worth of Christmas lights to be seen from space.
A well-known program, Google Earth, was imitated in this movie by using the Web site “My Earth”.
DeVito’s character wanted his house to be seen on “My Earth” so he put up an extravagant (almost ridiculous and impossible) Christmas light setup.
The last thing that seemed a bit unbelievable was the fact that DeVito, who is five feet tall in reality, and his wife in the film, only a couple of inches taller than he, had twin daughters averaging a height of six feet.
Overall, the movie appealed to younger children with immature jokes and themes and seemed to be very unoriginal in respect to previous holiday movies.
“Deck the Halls” was a bit better because of the decent acting by DeVito and Broderick and the fact that the movie would keep the children entertained somewhat during the one and a half hour run time.
As more years pass, so will holiday-oriented movies. Although it was a somewhat pleasant movie, “Deck the Halls” is nowhere near as original or as good of quality as classics such as “Home Alone.”
Final Grade: C
