'Four Christmases' should take it down a few notches

Hidden somewhere under all the baby vomit, Four Christmases actually has an interesting story about two people coming to terms with their family, as well as with their relationship with each other.

These two people, Brad (Vince Vaughn, The Break-Up) and Kate (Reese Witherspoon, Rendition) have had a 3-year, fun-loving relationship, with marriage and babies nowhere in the picture. But when their flight to Fiji to escape their families at Christmas is grounded, the two find themselves forced to visit all four of their divorced parents in one day.

Cue the wrestling, falling off roofs, baby concussions, keep-away in a "jump-jump" and involuntary participation in a church Nativity pageant.

But all that "hilarity" only distracts from the real point of the film, which is for Brad and Kate to get to know each other for who they really are. As their families air out the skeletons in each others' closets, Kate begins to change her mind as to where she would like the relationship to go.

Things we liked about the movie:

1. In the first 10 minutes, Vaughn and Witherspoon showed more chemistry between them than all the romantic comedies of the last decade combined. Establishing their frisky, adventurous and obligation-free relationship made the family-related strain, and the realization that they don't know as much as they thought they did about each other, all the more poignant.

2. Although the couple spends most of the movie dreading spending time with them, we liked the message that family, even with all of its flaws, is one of the most important things in life.

3. Jon Voight (National Treasure) is wonderful as Kate's dad, providing the only real comfort the movie had to offer.

Things we disliked about the movie:

1. The humor is of the awkward, neurotic variety, and at points it's so grotesquely over the top it left us squirming in our seats rather than laughing. Granted, it all seemed to lead to an overall purpose, but there were some parts that were so brutally, predictably unfunny that we prayed Brad and Kate would use their safe word so that we could move on to the next scene.

2. What happened to Robert Duvall? The man's a living legend who featured in four of the five best movies of the 1970s, and here he's reduced to a senile, redneck stereotype. He should find a better agent.

3. The movie teased us with a Swingers reunion of Vaughn, Jon Favreau as his wrestling brother and Patrick Van Horn as his mother's new boyfriend, and did nothing with it.

On a scale of one to "Ben Stiller-esque" squeamish comedies, Four Christmases sits at about an eight. The story is cute, but entirely too uncomfortable to want to watch again.