'The Kranks': A cruel yule ordeal

Luther and Nora Krank are ignoring Christmas, and anyone who has a warm spot for yuletide traditions should take a cue from the titular twosome of Christmas With the Kranks and stage a boycott of their own: Avoid this lump o' coal.

A lethargic, lurching holiday-themed comedy starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis as the long-married Kranks, with a tired troupe of character actors (Dan Aykroyd, M. Emmet Walsh, Cheech Marin, Austin Pendleton) as interfering townfolk, the wheezy family farce is set in a Chicago suburb that looks suspiciously like backlot L.A. sprayed with fake snow.

Directed in halting fashion by Joe Roth, a veteran producer and studio chief who has shouted "Action!" on a handful of features over the years (high point: Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise), this lackluster affair is charmless and unfunny from scene one. That would be when Nora dispatches Luther into a torrential downpour - sans umbrella, ha-ha! - to do a few errands, and Luther gets very wet and very mad.

Christmas With the Kranks mixes klunky stabs at physical comedy with cloying commentary about commercialization (undercut by rampant product placement) and the ultimate importance of family and friends.

Kranks was adapted from John Grisham's wee bestseller, Skipping Christmas, about a couple of empty-nesters who decide to forgo the usual tree-and-lights, parties-and-presents rituals, thereby alienating and angering their neighbors.

Home Alone's Chris Columbus is credited with the screenplay, which sacrifices whatever satirical bite the book might have had for tired bits of domestic slapstick (like icing over the driveway so the carolers will slip) and fatigued caricatures of next-door busybodies and bratty Boy Scouts.

Allen, assigned various gags about Botox and tanning salons, can hardly muster up the energy to deliver his lines, while Curtis, who shows a certain actorly courage in a scene in which she sports an unflattering bikini, is equally sparkless.

These dead-eyed, meandering performances hint at the only plausible interpretation one could make about Christmas With the Kranks: that Luther and Nora have long been living in a house full of gaping silences and trivial dinnertime chatter.

The marriage - and the movie - is imploding with boredom.

Contact movie critic Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com.

Read his recent work at http://go.philly.com/stevenrea.

Christmas With the Kranks * (Out of four stars)

Produced by Chris Columbus, Mark Radcliffe and Michael Barnathan, directed by Joe Roth, written by Columbus, distributed by Columbia Pictures.

Running time: 1 hour, 38 mins.

Luther Krank. . . Tim Allen

Nora Krank. . . Jamie Lee Curtis

Vic Frohmeyer. . . Dan Aykroyd

Walt Scheel. . . M. Emmet Walsh

Officer Salino. . . Cheech Marin

Parent's guide: PG (profanity, adult themes)

Playing at: area theaters