ELF (2003)

ELF (2003)

Tagline: This Christmas, discover your inner elf.

(Comedy, Family, North Pole Stuff) [PG]

I'm sorry I ruined your lives, and crammed eleven cookies into the VCR.

In this one, an infant ends up crawling into Santa’s gift back and winds up at the North Pole. The Elves there name him “Buddy” and option to keep him and raise him alongside them as an elf. He never quite fits in and after finding out about his real father living in New York, he decides to journey there with the encouragement of Santa Claus. There are a few caveats, though. His father is on the naughty list and Buddy still thinks he’s basically an elf. 

Oh man, where to start with this thing? Okay first off, this is definitely in my top 10 favorite Christmas movies but I never saw it when it first came out in 2003. In fact, I don’t think I actually watched it all the way through till December of 2015 or around that time. Meant mostly for kids, there are some light-hearted moments that most adults would enjoy as well. The combinations help this thing kind of shatter the age barriers and give us all a heartwarming laugh. 

The special effects are largely throwbacks to the stop motion Christmas specials like FROSTY THE SNOWMAN and RUDOLF THE RED-NOSED REINDEER. The movie used practical effects whenever possible and most of the shots with Buddy being so much bigger than the elves were shot using forced perspective rather than CGI. The soundtrack is pretty solid and utilized a lot of Christmas favorites. This movie also has a bit of irony attached to it. For one, Jovie, (played by  Zooey Deschanel most famous for YES MAN) says in the film that she doesn’t like singing around other people. In real life, Zooey is actually a singer as well as an actress. She also did 3 songs for this movie. Another irony is that in 2012 Will Ferrell (who plays “Buddy” and is best known for ANCHORMAN) turned down doing a sequel that would have paid him $29 million. His reason was that he’s middle-aged now and that he would look silly in the “Buddy” elf costume. He already looked silly in this movie which was part of the fun. The Motion Picture Corporation of America wanted to buy the rights to the film and cast Chris Farley instead. Of course, that didn’t happen, but I can’t even imagine Chris Farley as an elf. 

Performance-wise everyone is pretty awesome. I can say I am not a big fan of James Caan (best known for MISERY) in anything, but he is fine in this as Buddies' real father. I do think it was cool that the apartment that Buddies parents lived in for this movie when shot from the exterior was also Dana Barrett’s apartment building in GHOSTBUSTERS. So yeah…spook central. Faizon Love plays the manager at Gimbel’s and I liked him in this, but still, my favorite role of his is as Jamal in THE REPLACEMENTS. The movie also cast the legendary Bob Newhart as Papa Elf, has a brief role for Peter Dinklage and Miles Finch, and even had Peter Billingsley who was in probably the most famous Christmas movie ever, “A CHRISTMAS STORY”. Even effects master Ray Harryhausen got in on the act as the voice of a polar bear cub. 

This whimsical approach to the secular version of Christmas is highly entertaining and full of laughs. Nothing about this thing is really crass and most of the humor lands perfectly. Quite frankly I am okay with it if they never to a part 2. This is one of the better Christmas films as it stands.

For me, this is a 6 out of 7. I will say if you can’t handle some over-the-top kid-targeted nonsense, you will like this less.

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF NEW LINE CINEMA AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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