jimw-63592 I was actually nice and gave it a 2 star rating. I like Jamie Lee Curtis, but her acting in this film was flat out awful! I can't believe the director of this film didn't fire her while filming. It's such a stupid plot, two married couple decide to skip Christmas one year and go somewhere tropical. So the entire neighborhood flips out and does everything to stop them because the Kranks won't decorate their home with holiday lights and this massive sized snowman that everyone puts on their roof. I cringe every time I see it on TV! It also has a bizarre mix of cast members. No chemistry and bad acting all around. Tim Allen didn't even seem like he was into his character.

Scarecrow-88 There's an actual scene where Jamie Lee Curtis is going after a runaway ham she paid way too much for and Tim Allen is almost arrested for "borrowing a Christmas tree". It is one of those unfortunate comedy misfires that seemed to pop up a lot around 2004 (like the awful Ben Affleck flick, Surviving Christmas), with too good a cast to be stuck in. Allen nearly kills himself while trying to put a Frosty Snowman figure on the very top of his roof, decides to forgo Christmas with the whole neighborhood up in arms and laying it to them thick for doing so, and purposely plasters water on his driveway so that noisy carolers will slip and fall (!) pretty establishing himself as a major bone of contention during the Holiday Season. Allen wants to use the money normally spent on Christmas festivities and his daughter (gone away to work for the Peace Corps) for a cruise with his wife, but the neighbors are not happy with his decision. Dan Aykroyd is kind of the neighborhood watchdog, a type of respected voice considered a high authority. If he is displeased, then the community backs him. At first, Allen will not decorate, including the Frosty display…this is considered a standard that the neighborhood expects and demands. Allen is at odds with old man M. Emmet Walsh (whose wife is battling cancer), particularly his cat. Their relationship, no matter how strained, doesn't stop Curtis from caring about Walsh and his wife. The film is desperate for laughs: there is a scene where Curtis is attempting to get a tan in a tanning salon, in a bikini, with Tom Poston's priest, among other passersby, catching an eyeful and unable to look elsewhere, while Allen has a botox injection, unable to eat or drink! And the uproar to get a party and decorations together at Allen and Curtis' house before their daughter and her fiancé arrive is a bit far-fetched and rather silly (why not just tell Blair they had planned a cruise and, reason being, her absence was the catalyst in this decision? She is a big girl and can handle disappointment. It is her fault for springing on them her arrival…), but the point of it all is for the Kranks to repair their rift with the neighborhood and to show how the holiday spirit would bring about a coming together and forgiveness. Oh, and the movie wouldn't be complete without a Peruvian ballad! Oh, brother. And Arthur Pendelton, as Marty, who knows people but no one knows him! Cheech Marin and Jake Busey are two cops who have a disregard for Allen over his not buying a calendar from them while not contributing to the cub scouts in buying a tree sets off the animosity of the neighborhood against them. Allen could give tickets to a cruise to two neighbors at the end, but it takes Curtis scolding him in order to do it…he's quite a dick. Curtis, stuck in Christmas sweater and a mop of hair, is too sexy for this rather unflatteringly plain part. This is pretty much exactly as its reputation suggests…not a particularly worthwhile experience. The cast tries hard but the material utterly fails them. It is hard to fathom a neighborhood would give a rat's ass about Allen enough for him to be rescued from a deserved humbling.

gspencley In my review I discuss the general plot, but I try not to give away any specific events or spoilers. However, I marked the review as "containing" spoilers just in case my discussion of the plot details is too much for those wanting to watch "completely fresh."I had the feeling while watching this movie is that Luther Krank (Tim Allen) is supposed to be a version of Scrooge. In Dicken's classic novel, Scrooge is both the villain and protagonist. He is mean and you dislike him, but he learns a lesson and ultimately changes. However, unlike with Scrooge, I sympathized very strongly with Luther Krank. After years of celebrating Christmas with his daughter, all he wants to do is take a vacation with his wife now that she has grown up and moved away. But his neighbours and peers, who are some sort of weird cult-like Christmas version of the Stepford Wives, harass and bully him to no end. Therefore watching this movie I didn't want Luther Krank to change. I didn't want him to give in and bend to the wishes of his horrifically creepy and annoying neighbours (who should have been charged for trespassing and harassment). I completely recognized his right to be "selfish" and live his life for his own sake rather than the sake of his community who have no business interfering with his desires. I do not think it is a spoiler to say that, predictably, Luther Krank learns a lesson and changes his ways at the end of the movie. However it is the wrong lesson. In Christmas with the Kranks the bad-guys win. I think the movie might have been originally intended as a horror movie instead of a family Christmas movie, a theory supported by both the evil neighbourhood and the fact that Jamie Lee Curtis was cast as co- star. Perhaps if you watch it as such, it won't be so awful.

Davis P Christmas with the Kranks (2005) starting Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis is a fun, sweet, warm hearted Christmas film that will make you feel good. I Will never understand all the hate that has been thrown on this film. It's fun and sweet. I adored all the actors and their roles, this film was very well casted! I'm a huge Jamie Lee Curtis fan, and she didn't let me down in this movie, she really delivered as Mrs. Krank. Tim Allen delivered a good performance as Mr. Krank as well, and was very funny. The Botox scene was Laugh out loud hilarious! Several scenes had me laughing very hard, where others just made me feel good and had me in the Christmas spirit. The movie might not be Oscar winning, but that doesn't mean it's bad. It's sweet, heart warming, well acted, funny, and just gets you in the holiday spirit! I watch this every Christmas, it just doesn't feel like Christmas without a visit from the Kranks! Also, the tanning bed scene is absolutely hilarious! The tanning bed scene is my favorite scene in the whole movie. 8/10 for Christmas with the Kranks. It's mostly family friendly as well, just a couple of bad words, mild ones.