Fred's mother proclaimed Nicholas a saint from the day he was born centuries ago, and you know what that means for Fred - years of his mother urging him to be more like his brother.

Apparently, a perk of being a saint is that you, your immediate family, and your spouse enjoy immortality. (I guess that means he's not a Catholic saint, since they usually die horrible deaths first.) Eternal life sounds nice, unless you're Fred, who gets to be unfavorably compared to his incredibly generous and giving brother for hundreds of years. Fred's love for his family gradually turns into resentment, hostility, and estrangement. When we meet him, he's become a true grinch, repossessing people's things during the holidays. He's not truly a bad guy, opening his home to a local boy with no family, but he's a louse to his girlfriend Wanda, and he's a sponge, begging the brother he avoids for seed money for an off-track betting parlor. St. Nick (Paul Giamatti), who can't resist giving to the needy, also can't resist his wife's admonishments. So he offers Fred the money, on the condition that Fred spends the month at the North Pole earning it.

So we're transported along with Fred into a new sort of Christmas Village, where elves receive Santa letters at a massive post office, and use both computers and a massive snow globe to track naughty and nice children. But it's also a place where efficiency expert, played by a typically malevolent Kevin Spacey, threatens to recommend to a mysterious Board in charge of holidays to have Santa shut down for budgetary reasons. And since even the Claus family isn't immune from family turmoil over the holidays, Fred and Nicholas are going to have to work out their problems if they're going to bring happiness to the people around them, not to mention the children of the world.

There's also a subplot involving the elf Willie, who is in love with a North Pole accountant (Elizabeth Banks) that can't remember his name. Willie is played by John Michael Higgins, who we recently saw as Jennifer Aniston's brother in the Vince Vaughn vehicle "The Break-Up". Now, if you saw that movie, or any other Higgins pictures ("Best in Show" comes to mind), you know that Higgins is the same size as you or I. In a particularly jarring moment, you'll realize that the director has used digital effects to superimpose Higgins' head on a little person's body. It's done relatively well, but you can't help but realize that his head is a little too big for his body. Christmas movies are traditionally a gold mine for the smaller actors needed to play elves, but I guess the casting director decided that Higgins was a better actor than any little person out there. (And, to be honest, he IS good in the part.) Warwick Davis, Billy Barty, Peter Dinklage - I'm sorry, but I guess your time has passed. No longer can you rely on your stature to get you roles. (Banks, on the other hand, plays a human. I imagine her skimpy outfit, hardly appropriate for the North Pole, would have looked odd on a little person.)

"Fred Claus" is blessed by its all-star cast, with several Oscar winners (Spacey, Kathy Bates as Mother Claus, and Rachel Weisz as Wanda) and nominees (Giamatti, Miranda Richardson as Mrs. Claus). Their performance is mixed, however, and it's not entirely their fault. Vaughn is in familiar territory here. Fast-talking, charming, irresponsible, unreliable, a good man buried underneath - it's a role Vaughn can do in his sleep, but it's not quite as funny the sixth time. I was initially dubious about Giamatti, best known for nebbish, frustrated, lonely men like Miles from "Sideways", as the jolly old St. Nick. Playing a very human Santa Claus, however, Giamatti justifies his casting. Santa is overstressed, overeating, and unhappy to realize that he can give everything he has, and it isn't enough. Spacey, meanwhile, does a fine job. Cold and unforgiving, he unleashes that insufferably smug smile when things go his way. (I can't help but notice that for the second straight movie, Spacey's nemesis is an iconic figure in red, beloved by children, and able to fly around the world in a single night. You'll chuckle about that later.) The women, unfortunately, are largely wasted. Weisz, Richardson, and Bates are all extremely talented women in roles that require nowhere near that much ability, although another moviegoer did observe that Richardson does a great impression of Bree Van de Kamp from "Desperate Housewives".

Unfortunately, the problem with the female roles is indicative of the movie as a whole. The script is tired and cliched, the laughs intermittent, the outcome unsurprising. Anyone who has seen "The Santa Clause" (or, for that matter, the 80s comedy "Uncle Buck") will be constantly reminded of those superior pictures. There are redeeming moments - a chase sequence involving a horde of Santa impersonators, a brotherly brawl in the middle of Christmas Village, a Siblings Anonymous meeting. And your children will probably like it. Many kids clapped when the movie was over. And, unfortunately, there really aren't very many Christmas movies in theaters right now. My advice would be to take your family if there's nothing else. Then go home, put a copy of "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" or "The Santa Clause" on the DVD player, and have yourself a laugh. A ho-ho-ho. "Fred Claus" is a no-no-no.