(andPOP) - The first thing you need to know about "Fred Claus" is that it's a Vince Vaughn movie.
Sure, it's wrapped up in a holiday cheese fest, but out and out, the movie is all about Vaughn (which the narrator kindly reminds you of five times). While he's surrounded by other fantastic actors - Kathy Bates, Paul Giamatti, Kevin Spacey, Rachel Weisz, Miranda Richardson - they seem almost underused because of the way Vaughn fills up the screen. Spacey comes the closest to shining through, pulling out some major creepiness as the villain trying to shut down Santa's workshop.
It's not actually a bad thing, though. Vaughn is a big kid let loose in a snow-covered play land, charmingly rude as always. There's some slapstick comedy involving little people, goofy sound effects and a couple of dance scenes for the kids. But the real treat is the way Vaughn gets to let his mouth take him where it will. He was clearly given a lot of creative license to ad-lib as he chose. In the opening scene, he gives a 9-year-old advice on her college applications, asking, "Do you have any ethnicity in your background?"
The best parts of the movie are adult-geared pop culture references. Stephen Baldwin, Frank Stallone and Roger Clinton have cameos at a "Sibling Support" group, as men who are struggling to live in their more famous brothers' shadows. Baldwin flipping out on Vaughn and confusing him with his brother, then having to stomp out his anger while repeating, "That's not Alec," is priceless. Spacey ironically dons a Superman cape at the end; he played evil Lex Luthor in "Superman: Returns." And Ludacris appears as a DJ elf, digitally altered to be tiny like in his "Stand Up" video.
The basic plot of the movie is that Fred (Vaughn) has become embittered by the success of his younger brother, Nicholas (Giamatti). Their mother (Bates) lavishing praise on her saint son and constantly telling Fred he should be more like his brother certainly doesn't help. Fred has been living in Chicago, working as a repo-man who, appropriately, collects old Christmas presents from his unfortunate victims. He has tried to forget his family, but is forced to turn to Nick for money so he can start his own business venture. Nick says he'll give him the money, but only if Fred comes to the North Pole and helps out with the struggling family business. In the meantime he must get his girlfriend (Weisz) back, take care of his young orphaned friend, set up an elf with Santa's helper, save Christmas and fight the good fight for all misunderstood "naughty" children who just got a bad break in life. And if you don't think he could possibly do all those things in two hours, clearly you haven't watched enough Christmas movies.
