Deck the Halls

Given recent films like Christmas with the Kranks and Surviving Christmas, you have to wonder whether there's an underground contest in Hollywood to see who can make the worst holiday-themed movie. If so, filmmaker John Whitesell's Deck the Halls is a worthy entrant, a tedious battling-neighbors farce involving a squabble between the town's chief festivity organizer, prissy optometrist Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick), and his new neighbor Buddy Hall (Danny DeVito), a car salesman who festoons his house with enough lighted decoration to make it visible from space. In utterly predictable fashion, Steve and Buddy compete against one another, employing various nasty tricks (with the nebbish eye doctor suffering most of the damage—apart from the viewer, that is) in a series of lame efforts at slapstick one-upmanship that would be tedious to catalogue (although an ice-skating race in which both stars are replaced by extremely unconvincing stand-ins is probably the nadir). The real problem with Deck the Halls, of course, is that there isn't a spark of true humanity in it—it's more factory-made lump of coal than real holiday cheer. Not recommended. [Note: DVD extras include both widescreen and full screen versions, audio commentary by John Whitesell and costar Danny DeVito, seven minutes of bloopers, three deleted scenes (5 min.), four minutes of “Cast Interviews” by costar Dylan Blue, featurettes on “Construction of the Homes” (4 min.), “Winterizing/Shooting a Christmas Movie in July” (4 min.), and “Lighting Design” (3 min.), and trailers. Bottom line: a solid extras package for a spiritless holiday flick.] (F. Swietek)