I expected this to be terrible, I actually kind of enjoyed it at times but I found it kind of fascinating. It's a pitch perfect example of how a film can sabotage itself, literally undoing every bit of good work it does with an unneeded scene or effect. It's the kind of film which will fool you into thinking it's actually kind of fun and interesting and then will layer stock 'comedy' sound effects over a prat fall. Which doesn't have enough faith in its concept and so keeps throwing new things into the mix to get a laugh.
Giamatti, Spacey and Vaughn are great in the film and they all work really well together. In isolation however they're kind of terrible and despite the obvious chemistry of the leads it feels like the film goes out of its way to seperate Vaughn and Giamatti as much as possible. Elizabeth Banks seems to be grateful for the work, Rachel Weisz seems to genuinely wondering what the hell she's doing and I'm like 95% sure that Jeffrey Dean Morgan accidently walked onto set thinking it was a whisky commercial or something.
But Vaughn and Giamatti do save the film and although Vaughn is kind of overbearing on his own, I literally have no idea if his character is just kind of insane or if he believes his conflict resolution stuff is going to work, he's watchable.
I'm kind of a sucker for Christmas films though and so the setting alone tends to make me go easier on the film. I'm also surprised that ANYONE, after Jingle All The Way, thought that a fistfight with a bunch of santas could be funny.
What I'm more interested in is the weird career trajectory of director David Dobkin. His resume includes the OK but kind of dull Clay Pigeons, the much maligned (but actually kind of fun, imo) Shanghai Knights and one of my favourite comedies of the 00s in Wedding Crashers.
Giamatti, Spacey and Vaughn are great in the film and they all work really well together. In isolation however they're kind of terrible and despite the obvious chemistry of the leads it feels like the film goes out of its way to seperate Vaughn and Giamatti as much as possible. Elizabeth Banks seems to be grateful for the work, Rachel Weisz seems to genuinely wondering what the hell she's doing and I'm like 95% sure that Jeffrey Dean Morgan accidently walked onto set thinking it was a whisky commercial or something.
But Vaughn and Giamatti do save the film and although Vaughn is kind of overbearing on his own, I literally have no idea if his character is just kind of insane or if he believes his conflict resolution stuff is going to work, he's watchable.
I'm kind of a sucker for Christmas films though and so the setting alone tends to make me go easier on the film. I'm also surprised that ANYONE, after Jingle All The Way, thought that a fistfight with a bunch of santas could be funny.
What I'm more interested in is the weird career trajectory of director David Dobkin. His resume includes the OK but kind of dull Clay Pigeons, the much maligned (but actually kind of fun, imo) Shanghai Knights and one of my favourite comedies of the 00s in Wedding Crashers.
