| 70 |
Variety
Ultimately something of a softball satire, its climactic evocation of the "true meaning" of the holidays is surprisingly touching.
|
| 50 |
ReelViews
Not an abomination, although it is uninspired and insipid. As such, it's perfect television fare.
|
| 50 |
Los Angeles Times
A flat parable about the virtues of homespun conformity and the perils of defying family tradition.
|
| 42 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Above all, Kranks lacks that basic kernel of credibility that even a goofy farce needs to work.
|
| 40 |
The Hollywood Reporter
A Christmas comedy where laughs and even Christmas joy are in short supply.
|
| 40 |
The New York Times
Slick and treacherous.
|
| 38 |
Chicago Tribune
Phony, disingenuous family entertainment, suffocated by its green bean casserole approach to Middle America, spineless cardboard characters and paper-thin plot "twists."
|
| 38 |
Baltimore Sun
Christmas with the Kranks is so calculated that it's pathetic, a warm-hearted holiday greeting card with not one scintilla of honest emotion inside.
|
| 38 |
Miami Herald
They pull it off, but even if you believe in Santa, you'll never believe that this is any sort of holiday classic.
|
| 38 |
Charlotte Observer
M. Emmet Walsh and Elizabeth Franz enliven the film as a couple across the street...These wonderful old actors briefly raise the level of the picture to the kind of warm but honest drama it ought to have been.
|
| 33 |
Entertainment Weekly
In its hostile sitcom way, Christmas With the Kranks is a paranoid comic nightmare of conformity gone mad.
|
| 30 |
LA Weekly
Robert Abele
Other lumps of coal in this celluloid stocking include director Joe Roth's leaden pacing - like trudging through heavy snow - and screenwriter Chris Columbus' tireless affinity for pain gags.
|
| 30 |
Chicago Reader
In any normal year this dire comedy would be the undisputed lump of coal in our psychic stocking, but with "Surviving Christmas" still in theaters it's a close second.
|
| 30 |
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Hard not to pelt the screen with rotten fruit when confronted with a film like Christmas With The Kranks.
|
| 30 |
Salon.com
It's hard to discern exactly whom this holiday tripe is for.
|
| 30 |
TV Guide
Curtis' considerable and diverse talents don't go entirely unused.
|
| 30 |
Washington Post
It would be one thing if Christmas With the Kranks were a satire on the assaultive, bullying nature of contemporary Christmas celebration in this country, but it's not. It's an ugly glorification of it.
|
| 25 |
Christian Science Monitor
Its main message is that everyone should believe and behave in exactly the same way. Groupthink wins again!
|
| 25 |
Philadelphia Inquirer
A lethargic, lurching holiday-themed comedy.
|
| 25 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Filled with overly processed situations it tries to sell with manic energy, "Kranks" is canned, hammy and rolling as fast as it can.
|
| 25 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Ho, ho, horrible.
|
| 25 |
Premiere
Kranks is the type of grim holiday movie that reminds you of all that is noxious and insincere about the Christmas season and then chases it down with a sickly-sweet reversal
|
| 25 |
USA Today
For a comedian (Allen) who often seems to be calling it in, he's more lackluster than usual. Curtis is a bigger disappointment, especially after "Freaky Friday," in which she was funny, smart and cheeky.
|
| 25 |
New York Post
A loud, coarse and witless family comedy.
|
| 25 |
Chicago Sun-Times
Doesn't have anything wrong with it that couldn't be fixed by adding Ebenezer Scrooge and Bad Santa to the cast. It's a holiday movie of stunning awfulness that gets even worse when it turns gooey at the end.
|
| 20 |
Wall Street Journal
Bad can't begin to describe Christmas With the Kranks. It's sub-humbug.
|
| 20 |
Village Voice
Akiva Gottlieb
Cringe-worthy spectacle.
|
| 20 |
Washington Post
Everyone in the film is mean-spirited, manipulative and repulsive, and I'm only talking about the women! The men are much worse, particularly Dan Aykroyd.
|
| 12 |
Boston Globe
Kranks is a feel-good movie in which every character is hateful (except, sigh, the cancer lady), and a Christmas movie too chickenhearted to mention Jesus.
|
| 10 |
Dallas Observer
As the year stumbles toward its conclusion and critics begin penning their best-and-worst compendiums, here's a holiday contender fit for the all-time Naughty List.
|
| 10 |
Film Threat
Pete Vonder Haar
An abysmal failure.
|
| 0 |
New York Daily News
When is a holiday stocking more like a smelly gym sock? When it's the malodorous Christmas With the Kranks, a so-called comedy stuffed with bigotry, intolerance and bullying.
|
| 0 |
Austin Chronicle
Egregiously mediocre and flagrantly ill-conceived in every department, this is, truly, the cinematic equivalent of finding a single solitary Saltine in your stocking and a pair of old tube socks beneath the tree. Humbug!
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