Thursday, November 27, 2008

Fred Claus (PG-2007)

"Fred Claus" is a sort of silly premise that still had some potential. Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has an older brother, Fred (Vince Vaughn), who is sort of jealous of the attention Santa gets and finds himself a bit of a loser and always in trouble. When he needs some money for his latest business scheme, he agrees to come work at the North Pole for a while and earn his keep. Of course, the standard Vince Vaughn character dropped into the orderly toy-making world of the North Pole generates lots of problems. This concept, although admittedly silly, could have actually worked if they let it breathe. However, they felt compelled to create a situation where Fred Claus needs to save Christmas. This is where a corporate efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) comes in. He is at the North Pole to see if the whole Christmas thing can be done more efficiently elsewhere. He has his own agenda and pretty much makes sure he finds all kinds of issues with the North Pole. This is where the plot went off the rails for me. Are we supposed to believe that Santa Claus has some parent corporation that allows his whole operation to exist. Although Spacey is good, this part of the story is just forced to set up the heroic ending for Fred. There were definitely some laughs and the performances were good (full disclosure: I am a big fan of both Vaughn and Giamatti...oh yeah, Spacey, too). However, overall it just came up sort of flat. Part of the problem is that it did not really know if it wanted to be a family film or a more adult comedy. It was not a total waste of time, but I wouldn't exactly rush out to see it, either.

Grade: C-

Trailer:


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