Fred Claus

Rating: 5
Genre: Family

This was a Christmas movie about Santa’s brother Fred. It had some pretty quality actors (Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates, Rachel Weisz, and Paul Giamatti) but I am not impressed with Vince Vaughn who played the lead role of Fred. He plays the same role in this movie as he does in many others: shallow yet practical instigator who ends up endearing and heart-warming. Yawn.

The only movie I really liked Vince Vaughn in was ‘Into the Wild’ because his character actually had believable depth. And I think that’s just it – he taints movies with his smarmy attempts at comedy but his sarcasm is just not that genuine or funny to me. He’s very similar to Ben Stiller that way; I can pretty much tell what their next move will be.

I don’t expect a lot from Holiday movies, and if you’ve read my other reviews you know that predictability is a huge factor in what I think makes a movie good or bad. So this one, while it had a few good moments, could’ve been much better with a less predictable actor in the lead role.