The kids are your usual assortment of one-note stereotypes. Everybody Hates Chris's Tyler James Williams overacts as the geek. There's the underdog white kid we're supposed to relate to but don't, plus a snobby rich girl, à la Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club, as well as another girl in the Judd Nelson role as the loner with attitude, who becomes violent when touched for reasons unexplored (and probably best left unexplored).
Lewis Black plays the over-the-top director of airport security, hell-bent on catching the little tykes. Black has a way of taking an unfunny joke and using his exaggerated mannerisms and speech to stretch it out for an eternity. Meanwhile, it's Wilmer Valderrama's job as his assistant—and the half-hearted heart of the film—to say things like, "C'mon, sir, it's Christmas. Can't we just let the kids run amok through the airport?"
Director Paul Feig, who got brilliant performances from his underaged cast as the co-creator of Freaks and Geeks, can't make one childlike moment ring true here. Were it not for the overzealous score telling us when we're supposed to laugh, I'd be unsure whether humor was even attempted. Most egregious of all: This is a Christmas movie, which means that it will haunt us every 12 months until we die.