Rating: 2 Pulses

Rated PG

When I went to see the newest Christmas movie, I was hoping for some early yuletide cheer.

Unfortunately, Fred Claus let me down. Big time.

Vince Vaughn stars as Fred, an underachieving repo man trying to deal with a lifetime of living under the shadow of his little brother, Nick (Giamatti). Unfortunately for Fred, Nick happens to be jolly old St. Nick, the most beloved character in the world.

For most of his life Fred has had to deal with constant criticism from his mother (Bates) and comparison to Nick. After chasing one dead-end job after another, he’s arrested for one of his schemes and must make the call to the North Pole for bail money.

Nick agrees to bail him out on the condition that Fred come to the North Pole to help prepare for Christmas.

The problem with this movie is it has a lot of promise in the first 30 minutes. Vaughn still plays the same character he has for most of his career (except Psycho) and, like most of the movies, it is still funny.

But the story just drags on to predictable ends. Not to mention the fact that among a cast that has notched four Oscars, the acting was just plain bad. Giamatti gives the best performance, but even it is cheesy and clich’.

The most disappointing part of this film was Kevin Spacey’s character. As a jaded efficiency officer, I’m shocked he even agreed to be in the movie. Not only was his part just an unnecessary sub-plot that seemed to make the movie drag, but it also made a super cheesy reference to one of his previous films (if you’re unfortunate enough to have to see the movie, you’ll get it).

Director David Dobkin is familiar with Vaughn, having worked with him previously in Wedding Crashers and the virtually unknown Clay Pigeons so he was able to get a usual Vaughn-like character to come across well. He did, however, let the last several minutes drag on with a montage intended to get the audience in the Christmas spirit.

With all the negative things of the movie, it’s easy to overlook the positive aspects it has to offer. Among them are the original storyline about Santa Claus, his upbringing and his family. And there are several laugh-out-loud moments, but not enough to carry all 116 minutes of the movie.

And I don’t understand to whom the studio thought it was aiming this movie. This isn’t the type of Christmas movie that connects with kids (Elf) or adults (Scrooged). So I don’t understand what they were going for.

Either way, they ended up with what they got, and it’s certainly no Christmas miracle.