Painfully Unfunny

Rating: Null/10 (20 November 2004)

Ebert starts his review of Elf this way:
"If I were to tell you 'Elf' stars Will Ferrell as a human named Buddy who thinks he is an elf and Ed Asner as Santa Claus, would you feel an urgent desire to see this film? Neither did I. I thought it would be clunky, stupid and obvious, like 'The Santa Clause 2' or 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas.' It would have grotesque special effects and lumber about in the wreckage of holiday cheer..."
And that's just how I saw it: clunky, stupid and obvious. And let me add, painfully unfunny. I cheerfully admit that I am in the minority here; Rotten Tomatoes has it at 83% I think, essentially a rave, and Ebert gives it three stars.
We turned it off after half an hour, and, if watching by myself, I might have turned it off after the nearly endless opening credits, because I knew I was in trouble. Very early in the film, Santa Claus sees something moving in his bag of toys. He says, "What in the name of Sam Hill is that?" Gee, what a useless, trite thing to say at the first moment of tension in the film. Even a simple scream would have been an improvement.
Ferrell's performance has been praised; I found him unlikable and tiresome. We've seen too much of this before, and done better, as in Starman, Moscow on the Hudson, and Time after Time: the naive waif encountering modern civilization for the first time. The elevator scene is almost funny: Buddy joyfully pushes all the buttons. What does the stranger in the elevator do or say? NOTHING! What a riot. Buster Keaton could have saved the scene with his "great stone face," but here it's just one more opportunity squandered.
Is there anything good about this film? Yes, Bob Newhart puts in a welcome appearance, but it's a good thing that his old stand-up comedy persona is that of looking "out of place and anxious about it," because that's exactly how he looks here in his elf costume, talking to the camera. Fortunately it's mildly amusing rather than yet another embarrassment. The special effects are reasonable... "Buddy" is convincingly a lot bigger than all the elves, though his animated toy friends look off, somehow. The paintings used during the opening credits are attractive. I saw nothing else to like about this awful, painful film.
Alan Nicoll www.angelfire.com/art/megathink