Deck The Halls (2006) PG Movie Review – Classic Christmas Films

Movie Review: Deck The Halls (2006) PG

First Thoughts

I expected Deck The Halls to be a fun film with a ridiculous plot with outlandish jokes. I wanted to watch an entertaining movie with quality acting by well-known stars. Danny DeVito takes the lead role, and I hoped there would be lots of big laughs and some bold hilarity. John Whitesell was the director, and he also directed the 2nd and 3rd Big Momma’s House movies. Interestingly, Deck The Halls is also co-written by Don Rhymer, who wrote Big Momma’s House 2, so I expected a certain likeness between the movies.

I suspected this film might be of poor quality because it took a loss at the box office. The second and third Big Momma’s House films aren’t that great either. I was still willing to take a chance on it, though, given the star-filled cast.

Deck The Halls movie trailer is on YouTube here.

Deck The Halls Film Review Part One: Overview

Genre

This film is a PG rated comedy that deals with serious issues.

I didn’t find the dark moments and mean behaviour amusing. It added little in the way of family fun comedy viewing.

Even though it’s PG, many of the jokes involve a level of sarcasm and ridicule that would take maturity to comprehend (or should that be immaturity!) This film targets an adult audience, but it’s toned down to a PG level. The story theme unfolds into one of forgiveness and togetherness.

Plot

Matthew Broderick is Dr Steve Finch, a small town optician who’s known by all as Mr Christmas. Over the years, he’s built up a formidable reputation for celebrating Christmas in style. He and his family faithfully observe a jam-packed advent calendar from the first day of December. They mark each day of the month with a Christmas tradition, and they relish showing off their flair for celebrating the season’s festivities to the neighbours.

Danny DeVito is Buddy Hall, a cheeky, unscrupulous and ruthlessly ambitious salesperson. Buddy haphazardly moves into the neighbourhood with his wife and twin daughters at midnight on the first day of December, just in time to disrupt all of Steve’s usual Advent plans.

Things don’t get off to a great start between the two men, and the neighbourly relations worsen after Buddy decides that his family’s outdoor Christmas lights need to be bright enough to be seen from space. This ignites a rivalry between Buddy and Steve over the town’s Mr Christmas status. Their row escalates and intensifies into a bitter conflict.

Buddy’s bold take on celebrating Christmas doesn’t go down well with Steve. Cue many heated interactions and stunts between the two as they compete for the town’s Christmas guy status.

Meanwhile, the men’s wives and children get on brilliantly together, and they tire of the escalating conflict between Buddy and Steve. After messing up more than ever before, the men’s wives and children lose faith in them and leave. But eventually, Buddy and Steve put aside their differences and pull together to win their family’s love back.

In the end, both men transform into responsible fathers and husbands. Steve and Buddy gain forgiveness by ending their feud, arranging a trail of Christmas decorations and making a big Christmas dinner!

Characters

As I’ve already mentioned, the two lead characters are Matthew Boderick who plays Steve Finch and Danny DeVito who plays Buddy Hall.

Steve Finch initially seems to be the more reasonable of the two lead male characters but his behavior gets progressively worse as he stoops to lower and lower levels of misconduct in response to Buddy’s provocations.

Buddy is an infuriating character right from the start and I found it frustrating to watch him get away with so much. He wasn’t the type of character I love to hate, he’s just plain annoying!

Luckily, there are a few laughs in between all of the cringe and tasteless humour. Both of the lead actors play their parts convincingly and the acting is good despite the often poor writing.

Steve’s wife Kelly is played by Kristen Davis, her daughter Madison by Alia Shawkat and her son Carter is played by Dylan Blue. Buddy’s wife Tia is played by Kristen Chenoweth and their twin daughters Ashley and Emily are played by Sabrina and Kelly Aldridge. The cast is good and I liked their performances, again it’s just a shame about the writing.

Camera Work and Animation

One of the only good things about this film is seeing the visual spectacular that is all of the Christmas lights and decorations on Buddy’s house. It’s really good and the crew must have put a lot into creating that display. Watching the light spectacular evolve is the centerpiece of the film. The lights look good, even in 2019 but they would have looked even better when the film first came out in 2006. Thirteen years later, technology has already progressed so much and the lights appear a little dated now.

Deck The Halls Film Review Part Two: My Thoughts

Good and Bad Points

I didn’t really enjoy this film as it wasn’t very much in keeping with the usual feel good spirit of Christmas that I like to embrace in festive comedy family movies. This film is quite mean spirited and downright miserable at times. I had a feeling that there would be some OTT storylines and a few too many scenes where things get blown up and destroyed; and I was right!

The wanton destruction of property is such a waste of perfectly good resources and terrible for the environment, as well as personal finances! Ahhh, it’s my pet peeve to see such irresponsible acts carried out in films made for children to watch with no identifiable consequences to the often illegal and immoral actions depicted!

I can take a lot of things in good humour but I particularly don’t like the fact that several laws are depicted as being broken in this film and yet, the consequences of some downright illegal behaviours are never shown and in fact, it’s all usually laughed off or forgotten about in no time. This is in keeping with a general theme that the humour can be in poor taste at times and it gets a bit repetitive.

I found my concentration waning throughout the film and even picked up my phone to scroll through Instagram instead of watching on a few occasions which I never usually do when I’m actually enjoying a film. 

Memorable Scene

My absolute favourite scene from the film is the one where the ice skating race takes place. That scene is skillfully choreographed and looks great. It’s also quite funny and convincingly executed but again, Buddy predictably gets wins the race against much more experienced skater Steve and that ends in an argument and that put’s everyone in a terrible mood again, right before Christmas!

There’s also the scene where Buddy puts on his Christmas light show spectacular which is entertaining and then completely brought down by his family leaving him at the worst moment. Buddy secretly selling a priceless family heirloom to fund buying yet more Christmas lights is a particularly sour and predictable plot twist.

Deck The Halls: Final Thoughts and To Recommend or Not?

Recommend: Not really.

My Rating: 5.6/10

I would only recommend this film to people who enjoy outlandish comedy entertainment. It’s a slightly insane film and definitely not one to be taken too seriously. But sometimes it’s hard not to take this film too seriously as it does push quite a lot of serious themes. The plot doesn’t always make sense and the storytelling often crosses over into the realm of the unbelievable and the absurd.

This film won’t be for people who don’t like cliche jokes, innuendo and depictions of criminal conduct left largely unnoticed.

If you like lead actor Danny DeVito, you’ll like this film as he is such a good actor and just about pulls off some of the most awful scenes. The plot can get predictable so if you want surprising twists and suspense, this film won’t provide much excitement.

Similar Films

I would compare this film to other outlandish comedy films like Big Momma’s House. It’s also in a similar vein to surviving Christmas (2004) and Christmas with the Kranks (2004). 

I hope you enjoyed my Deck The Halls Film Review! You can check out my Jingle All The Way Film Review here. If you want more Christmas content, there’s lots on the blog including my Christmas Memes post here!

Talk to you soon!

Miss Beauty Saver