’Four Christmases’ is zero fun
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AP
Oluşturulma Tarihi: Ocak 03, 2009 00:00
LOS ANGELES - Vaughn makes 'Four Christmases' tolerable here and there, but this kind of slapstick physical comedy does not suit Witherspoon at all. Director Seth Gordon, making his feature debut, fails to make optimal use of the qualities that make this bright actress shine.
The size difference between Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon is not the only thing keeping them apart in "Four Christmases."
His signature rat-a-tat over confidence and her pleasing girl-next-door perkiness turns out to be an awkward mix. Individually likable, Vaughn and Witherspoon never really seem to mesh as a couple.
That is a problem, as we are meant to root for them to stick together. It does not help that they are saddled with hackneyed holiday gags: wacky relatives making inappropriate remarks, decorations that cause severe bodily harm, obnoxious kids, uncomfortable gift exchanges. And "Four Christmases" began with some promise, too.
Vaughn's Brad and Witherspoon's Kate are a happily unmarried couple sharing a coolly industrial-chic house in San Francisco. They like to keep things lively by role-playing at bars, as they do in the film's amusingly naughty opening, and they lie to their families about doing charity work each year to avoid seeing them during the holidays.
So far, so good. Then, when they are caught live on the news getting stuck at the airport on the way to Fiji, they get roped into seeing both sets of parents, who are divorced, hence Brad and Kate's own apprehension about walking down the aisle. And so they must celebrate -- let us all say it together Ñ four Christmases.
The visiting begins in painfully broad fashion with Brad's family, all white-trash stereotypes led by Robert Duvall, Vaughn's longtime friend and collaborator, a freakishly muscular Jon Favreau, and Tim McGraw play his ultimate-fighter brothers. The noisy joylessness of this segment sets the tone for the whole movie and it makes you wonder how it is possible that it took four screenwriters to come up with this stuff.
Next, they are off to see Kate's mom, played by Mary Steenburgen, who has found the Lord now that she is involved with a rock-star preacher, Dwight Yoakam, underused. Kristin Chenoweth plays her smugly married-with-children older sister in a perfect bit of casting; it is amazing she and Witherspoon never shared the screen before. It is also amazing that, after dating for three years, neither Kate nor Brad has met the other's family until now.
The third stop is at Brad's mom's house and speaking of a complete waste of talent, Sissy Spacek gets to do little, but beam benignly as a rich Marin County hippie. Finally, they end up at the upscale home of Kate's father, played by Jon Voight, but by then the couple's relationship is hanging by a thread. After attempting to offend us in every imaginable way, "Four Christmases" has the chutzpah to try tugging at our hearts, with a half-baked conflict about Kate's sudden desire to get married and start a family, as if any of their hideous visits would inspire such an instinct.
Vaughn makes the movie tolerable here and there, but this kind of slapstick physical comedy does not suit Witherspoon at all. Director Seth Gordon, making his feature debut following the critically acclaimed documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," fails to make optimal use of the qualities that make this bright actress shine. It is not funny when a baby spits up on her the first time; then again, it would be a lame joke regardless of who was covered in yack.
His signature rat-a-tat over confidence and her pleasing girl-next-door perkiness turns out to be an awkward mix. Individually likable, Vaughn and Witherspoon never really seem to mesh as a couple.
That is a problem, as we are meant to root for them to stick together. It does not help that they are saddled with hackneyed holiday gags: wacky relatives making inappropriate remarks, decorations that cause severe bodily harm, obnoxious kids, uncomfortable gift exchanges. And "Four Christmases" began with some promise, too.
Vaughn's Brad and Witherspoon's Kate are a happily unmarried couple sharing a coolly industrial-chic house in San Francisco. They like to keep things lively by role-playing at bars, as they do in the film's amusingly naughty opening, and they lie to their families about doing charity work each year to avoid seeing them during the holidays.
So far, so good. Then, when they are caught live on the news getting stuck at the airport on the way to Fiji, they get roped into seeing both sets of parents, who are divorced, hence Brad and Kate's own apprehension about walking down the aisle. And so they must celebrate -- let us all say it together Ñ four Christmases.
The visiting begins in painfully broad fashion with Brad's family, all white-trash stereotypes led by Robert Duvall, Vaughn's longtime friend and collaborator, a freakishly muscular Jon Favreau, and Tim McGraw play his ultimate-fighter brothers. The noisy joylessness of this segment sets the tone for the whole movie and it makes you wonder how it is possible that it took four screenwriters to come up with this stuff.
Next, they are off to see Kate's mom, played by Mary Steenburgen, who has found the Lord now that she is involved with a rock-star preacher, Dwight Yoakam, underused. Kristin Chenoweth plays her smugly married-with-children older sister in a perfect bit of casting; it is amazing she and Witherspoon never shared the screen before. It is also amazing that, after dating for three years, neither Kate nor Brad has met the other's family until now.
The third stop is at Brad's mom's house and speaking of a complete waste of talent, Sissy Spacek gets to do little, but beam benignly as a rich Marin County hippie. Finally, they end up at the upscale home of Kate's father, played by Jon Voight, but by then the couple's relationship is hanging by a thread. After attempting to offend us in every imaginable way, "Four Christmases" has the chutzpah to try tugging at our hearts, with a half-baked conflict about Kate's sudden desire to get married and start a family, as if any of their hideous visits would inspire such an instinct.
Vaughn makes the movie tolerable here and there, but this kind of slapstick physical comedy does not suit Witherspoon at all. Director Seth Gordon, making his feature debut following the critically acclaimed documentary "The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters," fails to make optimal use of the qualities that make this bright actress shine. It is not funny when a baby spits up on her the first time; then again, it would be a lame joke regardless of who was covered in yack.