The best Christmas movies seem to be ones that get better with age. Anecdotally, I’d say that if you named ten favourite holiday movies or specials nine out of ten would be made over 20 years ago. This can be problematic for new Christmas films because they’re not just fighting the usual expectations people have in regards to a movie, but the heightened state of perfection of similarly themed films, the love for which spans many generations. Something tells me that Fred Claus won’t have that problem; the film isn’t terrible, but it is far from classic territory.



Vince Vaughn unleashes his motor-mouth persona as Fred, the older brother of Santa Claus who works as a repo man in Chicago. St Nick’s good nature drove a rift between the brothers and they haven’t spoken in at least a century, but all that changes when Fred needs money. Nick (Paul Giamatti) promises to give Fred the money in exchange for a few days of work in the toy shop, much to the chagrin of the disproving Mrs Claus (Miranda Richardson). The Clauses have problems of their own as an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) threatens to shutdown the entire North Pole operation if Santa can’t make his toy quota. Guess who throws a wrench in that plan.



The film does suffer from a kind of confused dementia: is it a straight-up, kid-friendly comedy or a winky-knowie nudge for adults who can get a clearer picture of what goes on in the mind of an elf when he’s attracted to a pretty, blonde girl in a kind-of slutty Santa’s helper outfit.



On the one hand you get slapstick hilarity as Santa and Vince Vaughn lob snowballs at each other, which has definite cross-generation hilarity potential. But then on the other hand, you have an extended sight gag where Fred joins a siblings anonymous group with the likes of Stephen Baldwin, Roger Clinton and Frank Stallone. The scene is hilarious, but is anyone under the age of 30 going to know who Frank Stallone is? I wouldn’t even know who Frank Stallone is if he weren’t Norm MacDonald’s frequent punching bag during his stint on Weekend Update.



Unfortunately, this kind of originality is not consistently on display in this film. Vince Vaughn talking in circles really, really fast: check. Snooty villain that makes the anti-hero look worse to achieve his own ends: check. The breaking point scene where the good-natured straight man is dragged down into the muck with his hipster slacker family member: check. Last minute crisis at the eleventh hour that requires said slacker to show his inner heart of gold: check.



And while you’ve just to love Vaughn’s rapid fire smart talk, and director David Dobkin is smart enough to step aside and let it flow, you subconsciously realize that this old dog is working without a leash. Basically, we just get Vaughn being Vaughn; nothing more, nothing less. It sort of leaves Giamatti out to sea as he uses his nervous inflections to play off Vaughn, but nonetheless, Giamatti and his neurosis don’t fit well inside Santa’s suit. Only Spacey seems on his A-game, playing old-fashioned evil with jovial menace rather than true malevolence.



No matter what, I can’t say we’re looking at a holiday classic here, moderately entertaining certainly, but not quite classic material.