better than most of Ferrel's films

Rating: 6/10 (5 December 2007)

I'll start by saying I can't personally stand Will Ferrel and usually don't like his movies. I don't find him funny and I don't normally find any humour or anything to laugh at in his films.
This is a rare exception. It's a Christmas movie and I'm reviewing it having seen it on TV at the weekend.
This movie is in the same kind of genre as Dudley Moore's "The Santa Clause Movie" and Tim Allen's "The Santa Clause". Ferrel plays Buddy, a baby who crawls into Santa's sack one year when he's delivering gifts to an orphanage. Sadly the film derails itself right there as a baby manages to open a locked cot and fall safely from 2 feet up without making a sound.
Ignoring that (and we must, unfortunately) the baby is only discovered when Santa returns to the North Pole workshop and is adopted and raised as an Elf. Eventually he discovers he is human and sets off to discover his real father (James Caan, not suited to comedy or kids films which this is really).
The film follows Buddy as he tries to fit into Human culture and how badly he is suited to that task having been raised in the Elf culture. The film is decent enough and is greatly improved by Buddy's love interest Zooey Deschanel (who I only knew from the Hitch Hikers Move and had the feeling that Reese Witherspoon turned this role down).
She looks great and plays her role well enough. James Caan has some good moments but really isn't suited to this type of movie.
The locations and sets are very good, there's a small appearance from KG (of Tenacious D fame) as a creative writer and the role of Caan's wife (Mary Steenburgen) could have been cast a lot better as she really isn't suited to this type of film either so both her and James Caan were very badly miscast.
The film is mildly bearable with the brain disengaged, even Ferrel manages to not annoy for a change.
OK for kids.