Many of us have experienced the urge to hop onto a revolving airport baggage carousel or cheerfully sail down a luggage chute.

Yet we've resisted it.

Not so an unruly gang of youngsters who get holed up at a Chicago airport at Christmas after a blizzard shuts everything down.

Under the watchful eye of Scrooge-like airport passenger relations manager Lewis Black and his reluctant lackey Wilmer Valderrama, the parent-less kids are penned into a children's area.

However, the kids - led by the resourceful Spencer (Christopher) - choose to break out and run amok around the airport building.

Soon they're careering down automated luggage chutes, crashing through piles of baggage and canoe-luging down the airport's icy slopes.

This is the sort of movie that Home Alone writer John Hughes could have transformed into appealing seasonal fare.

As it is, while there's plenty to appeal to the anklebiters, mums and dads may find it's like sitting through a delay at Gatwick Airport.

And, in a final ironic twist, Brett Kelly - the kid to Billy Bob Thornton in the marvellous Yuletide yarn Bad Santa - plays one of the stranded brats.