The Perfect Holiday

One thing you can say about The Perfect Holiday is that it's slightly less idiotic than most of the recent crop of holiday movies. It doesn't suffer from the same juvenile slapstick bits as Deck The Halls, Surviving Christmas, or Christmas With The Kranks. Furthermore, it's nice to see people of color getting a story they can call their own, while all of those other titles (forgettable as they may be) depict Christmas as something that exists entirely in a white-bread suburban world. It's a shame that this movie isn't more original. It's filled with talented actors, but the script is at the level of a TV sitcom holiday special. Morris Chestnut and Gabrielle Union do they best they can with their cookie-cutter parts, but the audience knows from Minute One exactly where the jokes are going.

Dejavu! Oh wait…it just seems like I have seen the same movie a hundred times. The Perfect Holiday was pretty much the same feel as the Last Holiday, Diary of a Mad Black Woman, The Best Man, and Are We There Yet? Needless to say that it was extremely predictable. They all reminded me of each other so much that I did some research; I was surprised to find that they all had different writers and directors.

I felt that this type of movie is not for Terrence Howard. He is a much better actor than this cliché type of holiday movie. He is already well established, he did great films such as Crash and Hustle and Flow. Why this film?

Though predictable and a cookie cutter holiday film, I enjoyed The Perfect Holiday. It's light, cute and funny. Who doesn't love a cliché holiday flick?

Gabrielle Union, Queen Latifah, and Morris Chestnut are always in the same type of movies. They are good actors. I don't know why they choose to type cast themselves?

This isn't much of a review because it wasn't much of a movie. It was a cute, mindless, feel good holiday film. You see it once during the holidays and never think about it ever again.

My seven and ten year old daughters loved this movie. They laughed so hard I couldn't hear. For those of us who grew up watching "The Wonderful World of Disney," it was refreshing to see a clean movie. Keep in mind that this is not "The Cookout." I enjoyed watching Faizon Love return to a family orientated roll. Morris Chestnut did a great job as the man every single mom would love to know better. And of course, Gabrielle Union, is always a believable actress. As for Terrance Howard, everything he has done since "Living Single," has been gold. Although I love any and everything about Queen Latifah, I think she did a great job making a wonderful family movie.

Queen Latifah vanity project (she produced) story of a single mom with three kids looking to find a life beyond her kids and ends up with a guy playing Santa.

Manufactured "feel good" flick with Latifah in a Greek chorus/on screen narrator role. Its not bad as such but awfully artificial in a way that is more ideal than real. take for example the opening bit of the guy chasing the money down the street, its a cutesy idea that is too artificial to illicit any reaction other than "Oh Please". Actually that kind of sums up the whole movie "oh please". This is holiday "goodness" so plastic as to squeeze all of the life out of it.

If you must see this wait for it to show up on cable where you won't have to pay ten bucks a head for something you can't get away from by changing the channel

Queen Latifah is the reason we attended the advance screening of PERFECT HOLIDAY in our area. If she is your only reason for viewing this movie, you might be as disappointed as we were. My husband would have bolted after 15 minutes, but in deference to me, he sat through the entire movie. He did laugh once, towards the end of the movie, at a cryptic comment uttered by Terrence Howard's character in front of a closed outlet mall. I won't spoil the movie for you by telling you the line, but you will probably laugh, too. Speaking of Terrence Howard, he must have owed Queen Latifah BIG TIME to appear in this movie, especially as the humbug to her holiday.

The movie has some warm, touching moments, with a little bit (very little bit) of comedy and (more than a little bit) love. It is just too bland and average to warrant a night out, especially at today's ticket prices. Wait for the DVD, or better yet, wait for cable (unless you really have to see the Queen). Please don't spoil your perfect holidays by going out of your way to see this movie.