Four Christmases-Five Groans

Representing the squandered talents of two (2) proven comic talents (Director Seth Gordon of “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters” fame, and Vince Vaughn of “Wedding Crashers” fame), “Four Christmases” is the type of well-marketed, high-concept, assembly line dreck that makes money and reproduces to create more processed junk comedy.

Vaugh generally has only a few speeds in comedy, most of them can be taken by ramble intensity.

There’s low ramble (“Dodgeball”), where Vaugh sleepwalks through the movie.

There’s mid-ramble, which Vaugh can use to great comic effect with the right material, as you can see in this “Wedding Crashers” clip.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2qEFgeHfMI]

Then there’s high ramble. This is the old Vaughn. The “Swingers” Vaughn he’s been coasting down from for years.

Watch this clip and you will realize how sub-par Vaughn’s work in hi-concept puke like “Four Christmases” really is.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODjE-_OB3JI&feature=related]

So you can watch “Four Christmases” and see Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon (“Walk the Line”) do what they can with sporadically funny but often belabored bits as a couple, both with divorced parents, forced to visit all their families on Christmas.

You know for sure it’s bad when…

A baby vomiting on someone joke is revisited.

Surprisingly bulked up is…

Jon Favreau (director of “Iron Man”) who looked pretty chubby around the time “Iron Man” came out and looks positively jacked here.