On the Big Board |
| Position |
Staff |
In Brief |
| 80/94 |
Shane Jenkins |
Yep, ninja elves. Take that, Christmas! |
| 102/214 |
Max Braden |
Elizabeth Banks and John Michael Higgins are great. |
Vince Vaughn has carved out a pretty stable niche as the hyper-talkative, hyper-annoying guy's guy, starting long ago with Swingers and moving on through films like Wedding Crashers and The Break-Up. In Fred Claus, he returns with Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin to that familiar territory, starring as Fred, the brother of Santa Claus.
Falling on hard times, Fred has to move up to the North Pole to live with his famous brother, where old sibling rivalries re-emerge, since Santa is the golden boy who all children love, and Fred's never quite been able to live up to that. Santa is played here by Paul Giamatti, who both makes a pretty good Santa, and has a great sense of fun and whimsy that could be put to good use.
In some ways, this is the reverse of Elf, which sent Will Ferrell from the North Pole to New York, and cementing another member of the Frat Pack, of which Vaughn may be the Frank Sinatra, as a box office champ. There's a fairly rich cast to round this film out, including four other Oscar nominees and winners in Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates, Miranda Richardson and Rachel Weisz. Opening in the lucrative pre-Thanksgiving window, this film threatens to be one of the top performers for fall of 2007. (Reagen Sulewski/BOP)
|
|
|
|
