Queen Latifah stars in The Perfect Holiday.

Yari Film Group

Jovial and junky as all get out, The Perfect Holiday is about what you’d expect from a holiday comedy daring to put “perfect” in its title.

As in anything but.

This slapdash romance-in-a-Santa-suit pairs two of the best-looking actors in the movies — the gorgeous Gabrielle Union and the gorgeous Morris Chestnut — and tries to keep them apart by any means necessary.

The producers hurl a trio of adorable moppets and three very funny supporting players at them to stir up laughs while the beautiful people get around to doing what beautiful people always do in PG-rated romantic comedies. No, not “hook up.”

Dreamboat Chestnut plays a struggling songwriter who moonlights as a mall Santa. Two-tons-o’-fun Faizon Love is his elf assistant, a comical bit of casting against type.

Union is a wealthy, divorced mother of three who longs for a man “who will just pay me a compliment,” nothing more. When her little girl asks Santa for that, Santa checks out hot-stylish mom and happily obliges.

Next thing you know, he’s trying to find a way to ethically court this beauty, whom he discovered was available through her child, risking “the betrayal of the Santa trust,” is how he puts it.

And she’s trying to figure out who the hunk was who told her she was gorgeous while standing in line at the dry cleaners.

Funny complication — Charlie Murphy plays her ex, a goofy, child-neglecting rapper-clothier named J. Jizzy. The hilarious Katt Williams is Jizzy’s long-suffering manager, “Delicious.” Their banter is sketch-comedy sharp. J. Jizzy is trying to cut a Christmas CD, and Delicious isn’t liking what he hears.

“ ‘I Saw Mommy Cappin’ Santa Claus’ isn’t in the spirit of the season,” Delicious drawls deliciously.

The kids — Malik Hammond, Khail Bryant and Jeremy Gumbs — are adorable and real enough. Union and Chestnut make the best of the material. Love, adept at doing the big-and-cute thing, lands laughs.

It’s treacly tripe, sure, but it also has more giggles than most of the other middling “holiday” fare this holiday season. Not as funny or overdone as Fred Claus, less heart (less edge with less filler) than This Christmas, but a better time-killer than Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium.

Queen Latifah, who produced The Perfect Holiday, plays a “good” Christmas angel who narrates the story and tries to remove obstacles to the lovely lovers’ love.

Terrence Howard, in his first-ever wacky cameo, is the “bad” angel who occasionally finds more obstacles to foil her.

Two words from him, perfectly delivered at the perfect moment by a very good actor — “Santa’s dead!” Biggest laugh in a bad movie all year.