I Want My House to be Seen from Space

You should know what you are getting with a Christmas movie named Deck the Halls when a family in the movie is named the Halls. Naturally the movie is your token, neighbor vs. neighbor scenario we have seen a thousand times, but this time done with a white background. This time around Danny DeVito (Batman Returns) plays the annoying new neighbor who ruins the very planned out holiday routine from the town’s Christmas specialist Matthew Broderick (Inspector Gadget).

The feud starts, sadly enough, when DeVito sees that his house cannot be seen by MyEarth (think Google Earth) yet Broderick’s is. To make sure he can been seen on the website, DeVito decides to deck his house out with a massive amount of lights and soon, MyEarth isn’t enough and he wants to be seen from space. Naturally Broderick is too fond of all the bright lights, sound and spectators that the display across the street produces and from there some hilarity ensues.

Aside from the two neighbors, the movie is filled with actors that shouldn’t have stooped so low to appear in this movie. Kristen Chenoweth (RV) is DeVito’s better half in more ways than one and seeing the novelty of her actually towering over another actor may actually make it worth the rental. Maeby Fünke shows up as Broderick’s daughter but is relegated to the clichéd moody teenage daughter role. And for some reason Hurley from Lost traveled from Hawaii to Massachusetts in the middle of winter (okay, I bet the movie was filmed in July in Vancouver, but you get what I’m getting at) for three fairly unforgettable lines.

But being a holiday movie makes it a little more tolerable than your usual movie of this type. Then again you will still be better off watching the old Christmas standbys that you have seen multiple times before.

Deck the Halls gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.