I saw Fred Claus this afternoon.  I feel like I wasted two hours and $20 (though the movie ticket was only $6, if you are going to make a movie that bad, you should be required to pay people for their time).

It’s a movie that can’t decide if it wants to be snarky or heartwarming, so it ends up being neither.  It has no charm or magic or whimsy. 

Underlying it all is the fact that the filmmakers don’t seem to get why we celebrate Christmas.  They treat the holiday as something invented out of whole cloth by St. Nick and managed by some sort of corporate holiday conglomerate. 

Department 56 should sue, because the set designs were clearly lifted from their "North Pole Village" though without the sense of magic.

Apart from Santa and his wife (a neurotic and a shrew), the only full-sized person at the North Pole is "Santa’s little helper" Charlene, who, despite the ever present snow, goes around every day in a mini-skirt.  The elves are all caricatures — dressed in velour suits with cutsie hats, shoes with pointed toes, and red and white striped socks (I mean, seriously, can you imagine me in horizontal stripes?)

It’s just a bad movie and it feels MUCH longer than two hours.  Don’t waste your time on this dud.  I’m sure Rachel Weisz, Kevin Spacey, and Paul Giamatti are spending this weekend writing letters asking Santa to bring them new agents.