Four Christmases

On Christmas eve, my wife and I took in a movie before our non-stop Christmas-a-thon. Since we had three Christmases of our own to go to, we decided that going to the movie Four Christmases was Apropos.

Director:

Seth Gordon

	Vince Vaughn	...	Brad
	Reese Witherspoon	...	Kate
	Robert Duvall	...	Howard
	Sissy Spacek	...	Paula
	Jon Voight	...	Creighton
	Jon Favreau	...	Denver
	Mary Steenburgen	...	Marilyn
	Dwight Yoakam	...	Pastor Phil
	Tim McGraw	...	Dallas

Plot Synopsis aka Trailer below:


Review:Four Christmases is a very nice bit of holiday trite. It moves along at a relatively fast pace, and doesn't drag too much. It has the right doses of holiday cheer, slapstick pratfalls, witty humored dialogue, and a heartfelt ending. There was just something off. It started off funny enough with the introduction of the main couple in a rather unique and fun way. However, once the Christmases started...the movie started to lose it's charm rather swiftly. The main detractor for me was that you really don't care about this couple. They seem rather shallow, and when their families start getting to them, they just aren't there for each other. They don't seem to know anything about each other, and I found that odd. I mean if the relationship was 3 months old I could see them not knowing some of the life revelations that are revealed by meeting their families. Also, this is apparently the FIRST time these two people are meeting each other's families, and they've been dating for 3 YEARS. It just became very distracting and unrealistic how much these two people didn't know about one another, that when the revelations threaten the relationship, I found myself not really caring or rooting for them to reconcile. The movie also dragged in the middle with the scene at the church, which I found just moronic, and could've been handled better I thought.

Pros: Funny first half, and Vince Vaughn's delivery and dialogue was as always great. The movie is a fun holiday romp for that one time a year you'll want to rent it for some Christmas laughs around the holiday season.

Cons: Unrealistic characters to the point of not caring. It's rated PG-13 for a reason, there is more profanity then I thought was neccessary, and it broke the "santa rule" which I think no "Christmas" movie should.

Synopsis:Honestly I wasn't expecting anything but a brief bout of escapism from this movie, and it did provide that, but there are much better films, even holiday films out there to see.

Ratings out of 10:
Performance: 5
Plot: 4
Comedy: 6
Enjoyment of experience: 6
Desire to own: 2