Deck The Halls

""Deck the Halls" is a lifeless, workmanlike comedy conceived to provide holiday shoppers an inoffensive respite from the mall. Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito go through the motions as the squabbling leads in this drab exercise, which throws in sprinkles of Hallmark sappiness to pad its Scrooge-like portion of laughs beyond episodic sitcom length..."

"The elves who cobbled together "Deck the Halls" were working strictly with scraps from the floor of Santa's workshop. The raw ingredients of this crass holiday comedy include an inept stab at "Home Alone"-style slapstick, sitcom-thin characters, a snickering attitude about tacky yuletide decorations and a good helping of smarmy sentimentality..."

"There's a reason why this is the time of year for family films: We need a movie to give us a couple of hours' break from our families. "Deck the Halls" does the job fine, and although Aunt Mabel is going to warm to its macramé and jello-mold spirit a lot more than nose-pierced Nikki, it is a better option than the third "Santa Clause."..."

"The Christmas spirit, whatever that might be, has been reduced to a third-act deus ex machina, a jolly cloud that descends from the heavens to save squabbling grinches from themselves..."