Deck the Halls

Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito

Ho-ho-hum! Stick-in-the-mud eye doctor (Matthew Broderick) is at war with his neighbor (Danny DeVito) over Christmas lights. Add a star if people falling down in the snow is all it takes to make you laugh.

Since "Elf" and "Bad Santa" came out three years ago, the bar should have been raised on making movies for the holidays. One would think that you now have to go all out to either placate or challenge traditional expectations. "Deck the Halls" strains to be both naughty and nice with much clamor and not much conviction.

The best that can be said about this lazy farce is that your attention level can drift in and out of its storyline without feeling you've missed a whole lot. For some, that's a solid investment of their entertainment dollar. Others may want to use the time to shop further for that very special waffle iron or nose ring.

Indeed, the only thing "classic" about "Deck the Halls" is its set-up: the uptight spoilsport, a small town eye doctor (Matthew Broderick), squaring off against a nimble-minded roughneck, a car salesman (Danny DeVito), who's moved in across the street. If you're old enough to remember the "Fox and Crow" comic books, you know that the guy who can't loosen up will have his sanity strained, his possessions demolished and his dignity flattened by the well-meaning trickster next door.

The doctor's uptight because he wants his Christmas season planned to the last stream of tinsel while the salesman wants his life to matter (I guess). Hence, the latter's over-the-top crusade to put layer upon layer of outdoor lights on his house so it can be seen from space.

Let the -- what? profundity? -- of that sink in while you take note of the low-flying, sluggish slapstick, the nudge-nudge-wink-wink jokes about the cross-dressing police chief and the salesman's fetching twin daughters. Then there's the outright vapidity of the roles conceived for both Kristin Davis and Kristin Chenoweth as Mrs. Doctor and Mrs. Salesman, respectively. But then, vapid characters can't be helped or hurt by a vapid movie and both Kristins manage to come out of this bumper-car ride without looking too shabby.

In fact, at movie's end, Chenoweth deploys her formidable pipes on "O Holy Night." Given the crassness of what comes before, the hymn seems at first like a sudden left turn on slippery ground. But her lovely rendition is the only thing in the whole film that doesn't feel processed or superfluous. It deserved classier surroundings.