Deck the Halls (2006)

Deck The Halls is absolutely terrible. There are plenty of Christmas films that you know are rubbish and yet the festive message of them warms your heart every year and that’s why you go back to them (Christmas With The Kranks [2004] anyone?) but Deck The Halls is not one of them. I’m racking my brains to think of the last Matthew Broderick film I enjoyed (If we don’t count Manchester By The Sea [2016] it might very well be Ferris Bueller’s Day Off [1986]) and this is a true crass commercialisation of Christmas stinker, failing miserably in the way that Jingle All The Way (1996) satirically succeeds. Danny DeVito’s Buddy and his family move in across the road from Broderick’s family, the Finch’s, just before Christmas, and Buddy sets about trying to light up his house so brightly with Christmas lights and decorations that his house can be seen from space. Really. Broderick’s Steve takes very badly to this, as he is the self appointed Mr. Christmas for the town, and this results in Steve and Buddy engaging in increasingly stupid pranks to bring the other down. There was a moment towards the end when I thought to myself this film might save itself in the smallest way possible, but the ending itself wrecked any chance of that. It’s really quite dreadful. 2.0/10