What were they thinking? That was the phrase that was running through my head as I was watching the subject of today’s review, Four Christmases. Every now and then a film comes out that has a great cast but is so bad that you have to wonder why the cast members and in particular, the stars, didn’t walk away as soon as they read the script. Four Christmases is just one of those films.
Film
Four Christmases has a very good cast with accomplished award winning actors such as Robert Duvall, Reese Witherspoon, Jon Voight, Sissay Spacek and Mary Steenburgen along with Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Tim McGraw and Kristen Chenoweth. A film with that cast can’t be that bad, right? Well, yes it can. This is just a really bad film. The words, dumb, crass, idiotic and stupid leap to mind when I think of this film.
The film stars Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon as Brad and Kate, a successful totally self absorbed unmarried thirties something couple in San Francisco that hit the tropics every Christmas to avoid spending time with their respective families during the Christmas holidays. They tell their parents that they are traveling on the holidays on various charitable endeavors, all the while they are enjoying themselves at some tropical paradise.
This Christmas, their flight to the tropics was fogged in and cancelled and they were interviewed on TV at the airport, an interview that was seen by their families. Predictably, they had to spend part of Christmas day at the homes of their respective parents, all of which are now divorced, hence the title of the film. All of their parents and siblings are simply crazy, with one exception, and their encounters with them on Christmas send their lives together in a direction they couldn’t have imagined before their flight was fogged in.
Sounds like a good idea for a plot. However, the writing is so bad, the depiction of their families so ridiculous that I couldn’t wait for this film to end. If you want to watch a train wreck, give this film a rent. I would recommend that the rest of you skip it entirely.
Video
The word that leaps to mind when I think of the picture quality on this release is mediocre. The only positive comment I can make about the film is that is has a natural color palette. That’s it. Black level, clarity, detail and three dimensionality are all mediocre with a resulting image that is flat and lifeless. Detail, in particular facial and background details, are well below the better looking films on Blu-ray. The film has a smoothed over hazy look that I didn’t find appealing at all. Is it the worst looking film I have seen? No, it is not that bad. However, the picture quality on this release is almost as disappointing as the film itself.
Audio
Unfortunately, the audio on this release is just as disappointing as the video. While I was not exactly expecting a bombastic sound design given the nature of the film, I was expecting an audio track with some semblance of dynamics and pop. What we are provided with is a track that is as flat and drab as the video, devoid of any sense of dynamics. This might as well have been a stereo mix, as the surrounds are hardly engaged at all during the film. There is little if any real deep bass to speak of and no real sense of space or depth to the sound field. The dialogue track is just OK and always intelligible, which in the case of this film, is not necessarily a good thing. A drab, flat and boring sound track is not what I was expecting and is what is provided on this release.
Special Features
I can’t really say that I was impressed with any of the extras here. The release does include a digital copy compatible with Macs and PCs. Included is a gag reel that is presented in high definition. Also presented in HD is a featurette Four Christmases-Holiday Moments where the cast and crew discuss the film as well as their own real life family Christmas experiences.
The extras also include 7 additional scenes not included in the film (for good reason) as well as an utterly forgettable featurette Seven-Layer Holiday Meals in a Flash, with celebrity cook Paula Deen and cast member Katy Mixon whipping up a Christmas meal. Seven-Layer Holiday Meals is also presented in HD. Also included is the HBO First Look segment entitled Four CHristmases-Behind the Madness. The release is also BD-Live enabled allowing you to access personal and candid cast member memories and outtakes with Paula Deen and Katy Mixon.
Final Thoughts
To say that I was disappointed in this release would be a bit of an understatement. From the film itself to the audio and video presentations, this release is a real disappointment. If I were you, I would skip this one entirely.
