The Christmas season is in crisis when an efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) is sent to the North Pole to evaluate Santa Claus's (Paul Giamatti) operation. To complicate things further, Santa's estranged brother, Fred Claus (Vince Vaughn), a fast-talking repo man who's out of luck and money, comes for a visit. Also with John Michael Higgins, Kathy Bates and Elizabeth Banks. Directed by David Dobkin. [1:44]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - An elf climbs on a chair and kisses a woman. A man and a woman kiss. A man and a woman kiss and hug in a couple of scenes. A woman kisses a man on the cheek.
► A woman wears a low-cut and short dress that reveals cleavage and bare legs to the thigh throughout the movie. A woman wears a low-cut dress that reveals cleavage. Two men wear sumo belts (their bare backs, chests and legs are visible).
► Several men and women dance and kiss.
► A man has romantic interest in a woman and talks about being in love with her. A man asks a woman out on a date and she accepts (her boyfriend watches and is upset by what he sees). A man compliments a woman about her appearance in a couple of scenes.
► A man stands in a woman's bedroom, and she wakes up and is alarmed.

VIOLENCE/GORE 3 - Several boys fight with punching and kicking (we do not see any injuries). A boy is struck in the back of the head with an apple thrown by another boy (he's unharmed).
► Two men yell at each other, throw snowballs at each other, one speeds toward the other on a snowmobile, one chokes the other using a shovel handle, they crash through a snowman and into a kiosk, they are both thrown to the ground and one limps away after hurting his back.
► Three security elves attack a man, they strike him and flip him in the air, he falls to the ground and they pounce on him (he's OK).
► Several men dressed as Santa Claus chase another man through crowded streets; several are nearly struck by cars when they run through an intersection, they run into a shopping mall and several fall on an escalator, they fight in a department store using baseball bats and Children-at-Play signs, and the man is piled on by the Santas (we see him in jail later).
► A security elf lunges at a man, the man ducks and the elf crashes through a window (we do not see what happens to the elf but we see him unharmed later); the man is then attacked by other elves, who bind and gag him with wrapping paper and plastic wrap.
► We hear about a "Top 10 Naughty List" and see a couple of the children on the list misbehaving (one boy strikes his sister's dollhouse with a baseball bat, then strikes his sister in the stomach with the bat and then strikes a lamp and a dresser) and we hear about one having bitten his dentist and his father.
► An elf punches a man in the leg and pulls on his leg; the man picks the elf up by the belt and locks him in a storage locker (we hear the elf pounding on the door and yelling).
► A man stands up and moves toward another man threatening him, then stomps his feet on the floor and yells. An elf is thrown into a crowd and he crowd surfs. A man is knocked out of the way by a sleigh (he is OK).
► A man is flown through the sky in a sleigh, the sleigh flies very fast and descends rapidly, lands hard on the ground and skids in a "hockey stop" (the man is not harmed but complains about the ride). A man falls down a chimney (we hear him yell and hit the floor), and the man slips on several rooftops.
► A young girl kicks a man in the leg when he is repossessing some of her family's household items.
► Two men wearing sumo belts wrestle in an enclosed ring in a restaurant, the patrons cheer and a man waves a large knife around and yells, scaring a woman.
► A sleigh is flown close over rooftops and causes some damage: it tears down traffic lights, crashes through a billboard and it crushes the roof of a car. A man punches an automated Santa Claus knocking its head off.
► A man walks into a door jamb and strikes his head (he's OK). A man spins around while dancing and crashes into a table breaking it (he's OK).
► Two men argue bitterly in a couple of scenes. We hear that a boy's father died. A man's mother makes frequent remarks about wishing he were more like his brother.
► Two men urinate in urinals (we hear trickle). A woman moans during childbirth (we see her lying on a table with her knees bent) and when the baby is delivered he has a bit of slime on his head. A man eats crème brûlée sloppily with his fingers.
► A boy is taken away by child protective services on the grounds that he lives in an unfit home. A tree is toppled while a boy sits in it, the boy is unharmed, but a birdhouse is crushed and the bird that was living in it flies away.

LANGUAGE 2 - 2 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 3 mild obscenities, name-calling (fat boy, four-eyes, punk), 4 exclamations (heck, darn), 1 religious exclamation.

SUBSTANCE USE - People are shown drinking eggnog in a couple of tavern scenes.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Growing up in the shadow of a sibling, expectations, disappointment, child protective services, heartbreak, naughty vs. nice, promises, families, Christmas wishes, death of a parent, inventiveness, interventions, embarrassment, love, saintliness, fraud, resentment, passing blame, brothers, charity, bitterness, efficiency, weight control issues, over eating, sleep apnea, being grateful for the things we have, mythical beings (Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy), tough love.

MESSAGE - Everybody deserves a present on Christmas. The world is what you make of it and it all starts with what you make of yourself.