Title:

Movie review: Excellent Holiday not so Ideal

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Summary: The Best Holiday is seasonably pablum partially redeemed by a intelligent (if wasted) cast and at least 1 unusual holiday bit. Directed by co-written by Lance (The Cookout) Rivera, the film mostly flounders by way of contrived meet-cute scenes and some “what had been they thinking” scenes (such as 1 involving a 300-pound “elf” attempting to put on a fat suit).

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Post Body: The Excellent Holiday is seasonably pablum partially redeemed by a intelligent (if wasted) cast and at least 1 unusual holiday bit. Directed by co-written by Lance (The Cookout) Rivera, the film mostly flounders by means of contrived meet-cute scenes and some “what had been they thinking” scenes (such as 1 involving a 300-pound “elf” attempting to put on a fat suit). The romantic/family members comedy also demands a main suspension of disbelief in having the lovely Gabrielle Union portraying a woman (Nancy) who wishes a nice man would pay her a compliment.

Union plays the ex-wife of an obnoxious rapper, J. Jizzy (Charlie Murphy—Eddie’s older brother—who gets the most laughs in the film). The divorcee’s kid assists steer her to a handsome department-store Santa named Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) who also occurs to be a songwriter. What’s much more, he’s pitching his tunes to J. Jizzy. Significantly of the film entails Benjamin attempting to maintain Nancy and Jizzy from discovering out about his romantic and company (respectively) arrangements with every of them. The issue is that there’s no logical reason why he ought to care—or lie to Nancy about his “Accurate” vocation.

Considerably of the movie entails Nancy discussing life with her gals pals (Jill Marie Jones and Rachel Accurate), Benjamin chumming around with his Excellent bud, Jamal (Faizon Love); and J-Jizzy interacting with his spacey manager, Delicious (Katt Williams). This provides scenes of soul looking, self revelations and some strained comedy—but small of it is fascinating. There’s also small reason for Queen Latifah and Terrence Howard (who appears to have appeared in 95 percent of the films released in 2007) playing competing angels (or maybe that’s angel vs. devil). Latifah breezes by way of her role, but Howard just appears embarrassed to be here (and who can blame him?).

1 of the brightest parts of The Excellent Holiday is 1 of its most understated: a department store hires a black Santa and black elf helper, children of all colors line up to pay a visit to Ol’ Saint Nick and no 1 questions it. It’s a sweet, hopeful set-up that gives a counterpoint to the otherwise pedestrian, plodding antics of The Best Holiday. The Ideal Holiday is rated PG for brief language and some suggestive humor. Running time: 96 minutes. Macsimum rating: four out of 10. You can go to the film’s trailers on the QuickTime movie trailer web site.