That single word "Christmas" in the title of any Hollywood movie has normally signalled anything but joy to all men. Or anybody else, for that matter.

Christmas with the Kranks. Surviving Christmas, This Christmas. The roll-call of tinsel-bedecked disaster areas has never had anyone ding-donging merrily on high.

Director David "Wedding Crashers" Dobkin hopes to buck the trend with this off-kilter retelling of the legend of Father Christmas.

The roly-poly, beardy old buffer is played by Paul Giamatti as you might imagine him - a genial old cove, rosy of cheek and genial of nature.

He's the diametric opposite of his elder brother Fred (Vaughn), an embittered repo man whose resentment of his sibling's favoured place means the pair are virtually estranged.

However, following a brush with the law, Fred is obliged to call his brother and reluctantly agree to head to the North Pole and help out in the toy workshop for the seasonal rush.

This is one of those flicks that attempts to appeal to adults at a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, more salacious level while keeping the kids happy. It never really works.

So a genuinely amusing comedy setpiece at a sibling counselling session featuring cracking cameos from Frank Stallone, Roger Clinton and Stephen Baldwin rolls along for five minutes. Anklebiters won't have a clue what's going on.

Conversely, some pretty icky moments featuring adorable kiddies will have grown-ups retching the egg-nog and Brazil nuts into whatever's handy. Probably a half-empty tin of Quality Street.

In weirdly schizophrenic manner, when it's not being Bad Santa, it's being Elf.

Elizabeth Banks plays Santa's Little Helper in a manner that you might imagine drunken merchant bankers leering at on a podium at a Yuletide Stringfellow's.

And Rachel Weisz, who appears to have taken Cockernee lessons from Dick Van Dyke, shows she is to comedy what Mother Teresa is to Xmas binge drinking.

Add Kevin Spacey as a creepy efficiency expert hell-bent on closing Santa down and you have a plot that is as indigestible as home-made Christmas pud.

Bah humbug? Yeah, but what can you do?

Tim Evans