AmateurMovieReviews.com

'Tis the season for Christmas movies, and though I know I should probably rent classics such as It's A Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street, I opted for something more modern. So when I went to the video store the other day, I decided to give Surviving Christmas, the 2004 film starring Ben Affleck and James Gandolfini, a try.

Surviving Christmas is a comedy, and I should probably admit right from the start that I'm rather hard to please when it comes to this genre. For example, I hate it when the film has a running joke because chances are it ceases to be funny after about 10 minutes, so I certainly don't want to suffer through an hour and a half of the same tired punchlines. But other than that, I'm always ready to laugh at a movie -- provided that it's funny, of course!

In Surviving Christmas, Affleck stars as a young, rich advertising exec named Drew Latham. It's the holidays, and Latham decides to surprise his girlfriend Missy (Jennifer Morrison) with first-class tickets to Fiji. Instead of being wowed by the romantic gesture of the gift, Missy is horrified that Drew could even think of spending Christmas away from his family. She breaks up with him on the spot and says that she'll be with her family on Christmas.

Drew suddenly starts feeling lonely and calls everyone in his phone book to see if he can find someone to spend Christmas with. We get the feeling that he doesn't have any good friends, so that idea turns up nothing. Then Drew sees Missy's therapist at the airport, and he recommends that Drew make peace with his past by going to his childhood home and burning a list of grievances on the spot. Since Drew has nothing better to do, he goes along with this.

Once Drew gets to his childhood home, he starts acting crazy out in the front yard. This attracts the attention of the current residents, Tom and Christine Valco (Gandolfini and Catherine O'Hara). After some misunderstandings as to Drew's intentions, the Valcos realize that Drew is doing and allow him to stay awhile and tour the house. That's when Drew dreams up the idea of "adopting" the Valcos as a surrogate family. Drew offers to pay them $250,000 if they let him stay in the home and act like his family for the holidays. He wants to call them Mom and Dad, wants to call their son Brian (Josh Zuckerman) his brother, and their daughter Alicia (Christina Applegate) his sister. Yeah, Drew is a just a bit eccentric.

The rest of the film then deals with various incidents that happen while Drew is staying with the family. None of the occurrences are original, creative, or funny, which made the 90-minute movie feel much longer than that.

I went into Surviving Christmas ready to give the movie the benefit of the doubt. I thought there was no way it could be as bad as all the critics said, and figured that the actors could at least make the movie worth watching even if the script was a dud. But no, I was completely wrong about that!

The movie really had no point and seemed to be a bunch of disconnected scenes thrown together to make a whole. The jokes were dumb, and some were drawn out to uncomfortable lengths. At times I felt like I was watching a "Saturday Night Live" skit gone horribly wrong. Plus, there was a very tasteless "joke" in the opening sequence that showed an elderly woman turning on her oven and putting her head inside, presumably to commit suicide. There are many acceptable things to joke about in a holiday movie, but I personally don't think suicide should be one of them.

Finally, I thought Ben Affleck reached a new acting low in this film. He was so incredibly annoying and obnoxious as Drew that I just wanted to punch him in the face! He wasn't funny at all and ruined the entire movie for me. Plus, he had zero chemistry with Christina Applegate, so I didn't buy that blossoming romance either.

The bottom line is that there are plenty of tried and true Christmas movies out there that will help get you into the holiday spirit, but Surviving Christmas isn't one of them!