This entry was posted on Friday, April 13th, 2007 at 4:25 am and is filed under Christmas Movies, Comedy, E, Family. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Director: Jon Favreau
Starring: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Bob Newhart, Edward Asner, Mary Steenburgen, Zooey Deschanel
This is a fairly typical Will Ferrell feature; silly, over-the-top, but with a gentleness that can win over viewers by the end. The story is simple and is mostly motored by Ferrell’s acting like an oversized third grader experiencing modern NYC for the first time. The feature is helped along by the veteran talents of James Caan, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner.
Will Ferrell is Buddy. The orphan baby, Buddy, grows up as an Elf at The North Pole, but struggles as a full-sized human in an Elf world, and eventually leaves his adopted Elf father (played by Bob Newhart) to find his birth father in NYC. Life in the big city is a lot different than The North Pole, and Buddy struggles with escalators, perfume and pedestrian crossing rules before his finds his father played by James Caan. It all leads to a pleasing conclusion, as every Christmas movie should.
Will Ferrell fans will find this to be a wonderful festive addition to his body of work, but those who have not enjoyed his previous films are unlikely to be won over by this one. Still, as far as formulaic Christmas movies go, you could do worse, so unless Home Alone or Scrooged is on another channel, this one will do.
