Christmas With the Kranks

An adaptation of John Grisham's amiable short novel Skipping Christmas that has been violently stripped of any semblance of humanity, this mind-numbingly humorless, barrel-bottom sitcom may well be the worst Christmas movie ever made. Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis star as a couple whose newly adult daughter won't be home for Christmas, so they plan to bow out of the festivities altogether and take a cruise. Apparently, this amounts to a social offense of the first order in their bogus, plot-device suburbia, and soon an army of neighbors are beating down their door like some yuletide Gestapo, angrily demanding they put up their seasonal decorations, forcing Allen into a Scrooge-like defense. Even worse, when their daughter changes her mind, Curtis flies into a panic trying to undo every anti-Christmas move instead of just telling her they've made other plans. Directed by Joe Roth (America's Sweethearts) with insufferably out-of-whack comic sensibilities, Christmas With the Kranks hits a new low in lethargic, tediously telegraphed holiday gags, then gets even worse when it goes off topic (such as a pointless five-minute bit about Allen getting Botox injections). Ho-ho-horrible. Not recommended. (R. Blackwelder)