No Ho-Ho-Ho Here
- Title: Fred Claus
- IMDb: link
Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn) is an immortal schmuck. The older brother of Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has spent his life in the shadow of his famous sibling. He’s a con artist, a thief, a liar, and an all around unlikable guy. Needing money for his latest scheme he takes a temporary job in the North Pole working for his brother.
There’s more to the film including a reunion with Fred’s parents (Kathy Bates, Trevor Peacock), an evil efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) trying to put Santa out of business, an elf (John Michael Higgins) with a crush on Santa’s little helper (Elizabeth Banks), a troubled orphan named Slam (Bobb’e J. Thompson), and Fred consistently screwing up his relationship with a woman who is too good for him (Rachel Weisz).
Would you believe, with all these stories, not a single one is interesting? Yeah, Giamatti is not too bad in the role of Santa (and Miranda Richardson does a tolerable job as his wife), but other than look like Santa there’s nothing for him to do in the film except play the straight man to Vaughn’s antics.
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It’s been twenty-five years since Robert Ludlum published The Bourne Identity and fifteen years since the third and final book of the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, was published. With the popularity of the new Matt Damon movies, Ludlum’s estate gave the project of resurrecting the series to Eric Van Lustbader. In hindsight, it would have helped if someone had made sure Lustbader had actually read Ludlum’s books. Lustbader’s The Bourne Legacyis a sequel of the worst order; a horribly written dime store novel, filled with characters that are only shadows of their once vibrant selves, full of countless continuity errors as the author gleefully violates the rules of the series, rewriting it to make it his own. Anyone who thinks they can do a better job with an author’s characters than the author himself should read this to see what happens when such material is put in the wrong hands.
Nothing tires me out and makes me more bored than a lazy film that relies completely on formulaic plotlines and predictable story. The Ex is just such a film, and not even the casting of some truly funny people can save this film from itself. It’s just a stupid, boring, excruciating bore.