Will Ferrell continues to show a comic prowess that I love in the movie Elf. He plays Buddy, a human that as an orphaned baby snuck into Santa’s bag one Christmas Eve. Santa, played by Ed Asner, doesn’t discover the child until he gets back to the North Pole.
At that point, he designates one of his senior elves, played by Bob Newhart, to raise the youngster as his own. Even though Buddy is over six feet tall, he is unaware of the fact that he is not an elf. Unfortunately, he is not able to produce toys like the others, and that eventually leads to him finding out about his human roots.
When he is told the story of his past, Buddy decides that he wants to meet the man who is unaware of Buddy’s existence. Buddy’s mother passed away, and she never told Buddy’s father that the baby existed. So armed with an old snapshot of his parents and a snow globe of New York, Buddy leaves the North Pole to spend Christmas with his human family.
It’s difficult to imagine anyone else pulling off the role of Buddy. The closest I can think of might be Tom Hanks’ performance in Big. Buddy is definitely a man-child, but Ferrell plays it straight and does not seem to try overdoing it.
This is a sweet film that offers a lot of the elements found in other family Christmas films, including Miracle on 34th Street, It’s a Wonderful Life, and A Christmas Story. Even if the ending is not really a surprise, it is certainly a pleasant gift. Elf is a movie that should be watched and shared with family.
This Infinifilm™ offers a lot of extras. As with other Infinifilm™ titles, you can see the material incorporated in the movie, or you can watch exactly what you want when you want. Some of the extra material includes featurettes like “Deck the Halls,” which shows people obsessed with holiday decorating; “Kids on Christmas,” which is a kids say the darndest things type of feature; and “How They Made the North Pole,” which is a behind-the-scenes feature.
In addition to the plethora of featurettes, there is also commentary, deleted/alternate scenes, and more.
GRADE: A (movie) A ++ (DVD)
