 Critics have united in a chorus of "Bah, humbug" to greet Fred Claus, starring Vince Vaughn. Most compare the film -- unfavorably -- to Elf. Glenn Whipp in the Los Angeles Daily News remarks that the differences between the two are striking. "Instead of adapting his schtick to the family genre, Vaughn shoehorns his machine-gun-talking, wise-guy persona into an overlong holiday film that leaves an aftertaste like past-expiration-date eggnog," he writes. Manohla Dargis in the New York Times calls it "Elf without the goofy jokes ... a lackadaisical mess." Mick LaSalle in the San Francisco Chronicle begins his review by describing the movie as "a complete bust, derivative and uninspired, boring and dull, not funny, not moving and about a half hour too long. It makes a beeline for mawkishness at every turn, but all its emotions are unearned and false." And if that's not strong enough, consider Kyle Smith's review in the New York Post. The movie, he writes, is "not like a lump of coal in your stocking. Coal is useful; you can burn it. This movie is more like a lump of something Blitzen left behind after eating a lot of Mexican food." |
