Maintains its gift of charm.

Rating: 6/10 (11 August 2011)

I actually was not all that remiss to seeing this, Jon Favreau is one of my favorite filmmakers working in Hollywood today. Zathura is Where the Wild Things Are without the cerebralness or Karen O, I am of the camp that considers Iron Man and its sequel to be both living up to and counterbalancing Nolan's machismo brooding tale of The Dark Knight, Cowboys vs. Aliens promises to be geeky fanboy action in CGI awesomeness about in a blender with some actual plot and characters.
I find Will Ferrell insufferable when he yells.
Will Ferrell is like Jim Carrey. People like him mugging, mocking, yelling, contorting his face, and generally just being a big child, when homeboy could actually continue to keep making awesome stuff like Stranger than Fiction (or in Carrey's case, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind). For whatever reason, actually having a character is animus to an audience that just wants a clown banging his head against a wall. I'm sorry, Will Ferrell. You deserve better than that.
So anyway, this movie is a modern classic for the Yuletide Time and for what it's worth, I can definitely see why. Buddy's absolute belief in Christmas cheer and his grinning dedication to spreading it is infectious, in its own way. It helps that the cynicism of the other characters actually works out sensibly. The movie still has to have its regrettable prolonged burp jokes, but it's nice to see things like random-taxi-hits-lead turn into actual character development as Buddy progressively gets a handle of this strange New York reality world he's found himself in and starts to adapt to its landscape... but all without losing his spiritedness. I can get behind that.
Could be better. It did feel like just a few scenes were missing in the love subplot between Buddy and Jovie (Zooey Deschanel).
What won me over in this movie was the North Pole land and the CGI references to old stop-motion animation Christmas movies of the past. Leon the Snowman is where it's at. Also, not only is Peter Dinklage an underrated actor, but his work in this movie shows he could do some really remarkable stuff if we'd all get over the "But it's funny 'cause he's a little person" aspect of it. Compare his role here (oh so woefully, woefully short, oh so scene-stealing) to his work in The Station Agent and then his work in Death at a Funeral (the, uh, British one, not the redundant and confusingly way too soon after remade one) and this man has a gift.
So what the hey, seal of approval for this one. Going back to Favreau, I can't emphasize enough he knows how to keep a movie moving and never outstays his welcome, Elf moves at a brisk pace and is over before you know it, whether you like it or not. Now that audiences are actually getting comfortable watching giant robot movies for two and a half hours or more, the art of moving along, one of Hollywood's major entertainment assets, sometimes feels like it's getting lost.
--PolarisDiB