Let me make one thing clear in the defense of Deck the Halls: It is a Christmas film meant to be a sweet and funny cinematic experience for the whole family during the holidays.
In that respect, Deck The Halls mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do, but not in a very original style. As a conventional comedy, this movie unfortunately fails despite its solidly funny cast. The film features experienced actors and talented production crew, but the writing ensures Deck the Halls can’t be anything more than a cheap family flick as disposable as a fake Christmas tree.
There are three writers in total, two of which have never written a Hollywood script before (Matt Corman and Chris Ord), and Don Rhymer, who is responsible for such film classics (please note the sarcasm) as The Santa Clause 2 and Big Momma’s House 2. Obviously, this movie was doomed from the start.
Deck the Halls comes off like a bad remake of Chevy Chase’s legendary comedy Christmas Vacation, except without the flaming cat and the emaciated turkey. Instead this movie tells the familiar story of Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick, The Producers), the town nice-guy whose decline in popularity begins when his new neighbor across the way, Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), moves in. Hall decides he wants to light up his house so brightly with Christmas lights that the house will be viewable from space – even though Finch already holds that title – and as you can expect, the two families engage in a bitterly hilarious rivalry.
However, despite the horribly one-dimensional writing style, Halls does shine in some aspects. Although Broderick remains inherently bland compared to his earlier ventures in ’80s movies ( “Bueller?… Bueller?… Bueller?”), the always-entertaining DeVito meshes well with his supposedly-sexy-but-lovable wife, Tia Hall (Kristin Chenoweth, Wicked ) and his neighbor’s kindly wife Kelly Finch (Sex and the City’s Kristin Davis). Despite the decent supporting performances, it takes DeVito’s A-list acting talent to make this film even decent.
The characters are stereotypical – the jealous neighbor, the traditional dad, etc. – and stunt the plot. But to Deck The Halls’ credit, the film does have several hilarious moments, keeping a steady balance of light-hearted comedy and run-of-the-mill holiday humor. And despite the unusual amount of sight gags, they are well-timed and well-paced, thanks mostly to DeVito. The guy clearly has a gift for making even the worst script seem golden.
Although the writing is predictable, Halls’ obviousness is not its failure. Like many similar comedies of this type, the protagonist is resistant to change, often in hilarious ways, until he eventually has an epiphany and modifies himself to the benefit of everyone, helping them achieve their goals and live happily ever after. Halls falls into this category, but not embarrassingly. Its prime objective is not to stump the audience or keep them guessing the ending; instead, Halls accepts its fate as an uplifting movie and tries to please the audience while jingling, cornily, all the way.
Nevertheless, Deck The Halls is a good Christmas tale, plain and simple. It is bright and cheery, includes the whole nine yards of the Christmas experience from caroling to the nativity scene and even throws in some good old-fashioned family humor (you know you love fart jokes). Halls is no Miracle on 34th Street and it will never be The Christmas Story, but it kept this reviewer satisfied for an entire 90 minutes, and that’s good enough for me. Just don’t let your friends know you saw it.
