Deck the halls

Christmas is a holiday that parades cliches. It thrives on white snow, sugary candy and unbridled altruism, culminating in swaying groups of strangers crooning about virgins and bells. Place this package of saccharine congeniality under the commercially grown tree of our time and lo and behold, we unwrap Deck the Halls: a tacky holiday comedy versed in the ways of American excess.

Let's not forget that Christmas is, after all, a religious holiday-hard to remember when we're busy hustling elderly women out of our way to snatch the last Tickle Me Elmo 2. Still, we're probably all familiar with the commandment, "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house."

But what happens when your neighbor's house is pimped-out with enough rainbow-colored bulbs to power a small country? Hence the dilemma facing Steve Finch (Matthew Broderick), a simpering straight-laced family man who torments his freckled kids and doe-eyed wife (Kristin Davis) with dorky traditions-seriously, matching snowman sweaters?

Enter stock character No. 50 in the form of Buddy Hall (Danny Devito) a petite man with a petite wife (Kristin Chenoweth), and a big dream-Buddy wants his house to be seen from space.

Soon enough, we're dragged along as the two men engage in pseudo-comic scuffles, none of which are particularly entertaining or plausible for that matter. Halls is just another seasonal slapstick comedy churned out of Hollywood to make a couple bucks just in time for the holidays.

The last few scenes of the film attempt to harken back to the sensitive side of Christmas. But no sooner do we follow this guise of harmony than we're reminded again with siphoned power and satellite technology what this holiday has become: a consumer driven spectacle that's all show and no heart.