Starring: Tim Allen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Shame, Hatred of Humanity, Embarrassment and Dan Aykroyd.
Directed by: Joe Roth
Columbia Pictures

To quote Norm MacDonald: “Happy birthday Jesus! Hope you like crap!”

In what can best be described as a total aberration of all things good about Christmas, in his unholy plan to eradicate the holiday, Satan has teamed with lawyer/quasi-novelist John Grisham, Harry Potter director Chris Columbus and the elderly-pleasing Tim Allen to unleash the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, the horrific CHRISTMAS WITH THE KRANKS.

In the whitest community ever, the whitest family ever, the Kranks, are saying goodbye to their white daughter, the whitely named Blaire. She’s off to Peru to do work with the Peace Core (which if you see her, you know there is no way this girl has even seen dirt), and that leaves Luther and Nora, the titular Kranks, without the will to live——at least you’’d think that way from the way they cry and carry on the whole time.

In a fit of rage, Luther decides that they’re going to skip Christmas this year and go to the Caribbean.
Now if this were real life, everyone would be happy for you and let life progress on it’s typical downward spiral.

But this being a crappy movie, the whole white neighborhood mobilizes and makes them prisoners in their home, constantly tormenting and harassing them to almost terrorist levels. I mean, honestly: the neighborhood is practically on the edge of suicide when the Kranks won’’t put Frosty on their roof. They stage protests and are on the verge of throwing Molotovs when Blaire, along with her Peruvian FB in tow, decides to come home.

Now this is where the movie gets plain out-of-hand: along with the fire and police departments (thank you tax dollars!), the whole community decides to throw a huge, outlandish Xmas celebration for Blaire.
And a woman with cancer gets a free cruise.

The sheer logic of this movie, even suspending ALL disbelief, is so far gone that it makes STAR TREK: GENERATIONS look like a documentary. Tim Allen does what he does best——no, not cocaine——but flail around like a diseased porpoise and Jamie Lee Curtis wails and shrieks, erasing any credibility she had left. And Dan Aykroyd takes a paycheck and goes home to Donna Dixon, where he will probably write BLUES BROTHERS 2050.

Call me a cynic, call me a Scrooge——but I’d rather spend Christmas with the Hitlers than the Kranks.

Review by Louis Fowler.