TAKE same well-known film faces, mix them with a bit of yuletide schmaltz, then finish off with a sprinkle of feel-good factor and you should have a hit on your hands.

However, unlike your sausages wrapped in bacon, Christmas with the Kranks lacks the seasoning to whet your appetite for the festive season.

This Chris Columbus production, based on a John Grisham novel, tries to be a Tiffany necklace but ends up more like Elizabeth Duke.

The trouble begins when Luther (Tim Allen) and Nora (Jamie Lee Curtis) Krank decide to give Christmas a miss as their daughter Blair is away with the peace corps.

Luther works out that his family spends so much money during the holidays that they may as well use it on a Caribbean cruise.

But the family's bordering-on-the-obsessive neighbours aren't happy and will not lie down and let this happen.

Led by neighbourhood boss Vic Frohmeyer (Dan Ackroyd), they set about letting the Kranks know exactly how they feel, carol singing outside their front door and demanding that seven-feet-tall artificial snowman "Frosty" is released from the basement.

The feud makes the front page of the local paper - but a surprise phone call results in the family doing a U-turn and frantically attempting to decorate, put on a Christmas Eve party and get hold of an elusive giant tin of ham.

There is only one genuinely funny moment, when Luther decides to have botox injections, and the same old gags are rolled out, and - believe it or not - a cat is used for some cheapest-of-the-cheap laughs.

On the plus side, the final 30 minutes of the film sees Christmas with the Kranks go into feel-good overdrive - just what you want from something like this. The Scrooge-like Luther rediscovers his yuletide spirit, Santa stops a burglar in his tracks and it all finishes with a Christmas card ending.

The unfortunate thing is, we don't care enough about the characters to be bothered.