The premise of the movie is fun – Vaughn and Witherspoon are in a long-term relationship, but not married. They habitually avoid visiting their respective families during the Christmas season because they’d rather not share their family stories with each other. Why is the movie called “four” Christmases? Well, it turns out that both of their sets of parents are divorced. In other words, in order to visit their families on Christmas, Vaughn and Witherspoon have to hit four different locations in one day.

For Vaughn, he’s got an alcoholic father and two brothers who are obsessed with ultimate fighting. In fact, they’re so obsessed that they beat the hell out of his each time he comes home. Further, they mock the fact that he pursued a higher education and resent him for his increased income. The funniest part of the movie for me was when Vaughn was being bodyslammed by his brothers and his nephews come into the family room to beat him up, too. I don’t know why, but I got a kick out of that.

Vaughn’s mother left the alcoholic father to run off with someone who just wants to be friends with Vaughn again. Ahem…again. That’s right, Vaughn’s mother ran off with one of his long-time friends! The Director, Seth Gordon, does a great job of making these scenes extra awkward.

As for Witherspoon, her mother has a few sisters who are eager to jump on Vaughn when he enters the house. They’re also not shy about sharing some of Witherspoon’s more embarrassing moments from growing up including her stint at fat camp and the fact that her best friend growing up was a butch lesbian!

Witherspoon’s father, on the other hand, reports that he’s been divorced “multiple” times, but his introduction into the movie also serves to set the stage for the climax. I won’t share the outcome of the movie with you, but suffice to say that the good guys always win in the end and that holds true for this movie, too.

The bottom line is that if you’re into Christmas movies, but are more into the Bad Santa type rather than the Miracle on 34th Street type, then you’ll enjoy this movie. Given the craptastic economy, though, I suggest that you wait until this is available as a cheap rental and not an expensive trip to the movie theater.

The gist of the movie is that sometime in the early 21st Century (now), the dumb people of the world just started procreating like crazy while the smart folks waited because the market was bad, their particular situation was bad, or they just couldn’t “perform” in bed. This led to the acceleration of Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” doctrine, but in favor of the morons and not the smart people.

What does this create? A world full of people who don’t know what to do with their garbage, can’t comprehend anything other than grunts and minimal phrases, and use the equivalent of Gatorade to water their crops (which all – surprisingly – are dead). Throw in a former UFC fighter as President of America and the #1 TV channel being named the “Violence Channel” and you’ve got Mike Judge’s 2505.

I won’t go into the details about how Vince Vaughn is transported from 2005 to 2505 or how he and Maya Rudolph get along in the future, but I will say that this movie is hilarious to anyone who knows a real dumb person. You know the person I’m referencing. The one who goes, “Hey guys, I have a story.” And then proceeds to tell a story that is so God-awfully boring you want to kick him in the shin.

And I hate to say this because I really do admire the jobs that police officers do, but the cops in 2505 are so close to some of the police officers that I know here in 2005 that it’s scary. Thank God my hometown of Roxbury doesn’t have any police like this, which is more than I can say for some of the fools that I had to deal with while I was a college student…

But I digress. With a running time of 84 minutes, Idiocracy is a great movie to watch on a weekend afternoon if you’re looking for a laugh. I recommend it.