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Movie Review: Elf
by R.J. Carter
Published: November 4, 2003
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Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: November 7, 2003
Distributor: New Line Cinema
Director:
· Jon Favreau
Cast:
· Will Ferrell: Buddy
· James Caan: Walter Hobbs
· Zooey Deschanel: Jovie
· Mary Steenburgen: Emily Hobbs
· Daniel Tay: Michael Hobbs
· Bob Newhart: Papa Elf
· Edward Asner: Santa Claus
Related Sites:
· IMDb: Elf
Grade: B+
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An orphaned baby crawls unseen into Santa's sack one Christmas Eve night, setting into motion a series of Yuletide hijinks. Rather than return the child to the orphanage upon his discovery, Santa Claus (perfectly portrayed by veteran Ed Asner) decides to allow the child to stay, raised by Papa Elf (an inspired performance by Bob Newhart.)
The movie opens with more than a wink and a nod to the Rankin-Bass holiday classics. We have a narrator in the person of Papa Elf, the snowflakes at the North Pole are animated cut-outs, and there's more than one appearance by animatronics that would have been right at home on the Island of Misfit Toys.
(left to right) Daniel Tay stars as “Michael,” James
Caan stars as “Walter” and Will Ferrell stars
as “Buddy” in New Line Cinema’s upcoming
family comedy, ELF.
Photo: ©2003 Alan Markfield, New Line Productions
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As the baby--whom the elves name Buddy--grows (and grows and grows), he quickly finds he isn't like the other elves. Finally, Papa Elf feels it's time to tell the six-foot-five Buddy the truth: he's not an elf, he's a human. What's more, he's not really an orphan. He has a father who never knew about Buddy: a curmudgeonly, business-first children's book editor, Walter Hobbs (James Caan). Buddy quickly undertakes the quest to reunite with his father, and the clash of realities begins.
There are places where Ferrell's comedy wears a bit thin: one joke about contemporaneous song composing was enough, two was too many. However, it's balanced out nicely when he actually turns in a listenable performance in a duet with Zooey Deschanel (doing one of my all-time favorite duets, "Baby, It's Cold Outside," coincidentally a song Caan once performed with Bette Midler.) The candy-indulgence bits also may have been repeated a bit too often.
But overall what shines through is Buddy's complete and pure childlike innocence. No matter what he screws up, what he destroys, you can't help but be won over by his sheer exuberance for Christmas as he shares the many truths of Christmas (One of which is that the Santa at Gimbel's is a fake! But anyone who's seen Miracle on 34th Street could have told you that.)
 Events come to a climax as Caan begins to see what kind of man he has become to his family (Steenburgen and Tay), and attempts a turnaround in his life--on Christmas Eve, no less, just as a certain you-know-who has a crash landing in Central Park. Naturally, it's Buddy the Elf to the rescue, doing what he can to get the big guy airborne again before the Central Park Rangers--horse-mounted Dementors, if you ask me--catch them. (Believers in Bigfoot will want to keep a close eye out for some "amateur footage" that looks astonishingly similar to the Patterson/Gimlin movie from 1967.)
It's a family film, with the expected happy ending. It's also a movie kids are going to want to see again and again, if the boisterous reactions I observed are any indication. So bring the family and settle in for a jolly good time. And don't forget to stop by the snack bar on the way in and stock up on the four elf food groups: candy, candy canes, candy corn, and syrup.
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