A Christmas Buddy.

Rating: 6/10 (26 December 2010)

With Christmas just having finished,I've decided to take a little bit of a break from watching two of my favourite Christmas films (Bob Clarks definitive Xmas film-A Christmas Story and the surprisingly strong Muppets Christmas Carol.)and to try out something that I had been looking forward to seeing for the last few weeks.
With a surprisingly strong cast,a charming screenplay and a huge dollop of charm,the movie is something that can easily keep kids and adults very entertained over the holiday period.
The plot:
When Santa returns to his factory, from having dropped off all the presents.He makes a shocking discovery,that a baby has gotten into one of the sacks.Santa decides that the best thing to do is to let one of his chief elf's-Papa Elf raise the baby(whose named Buddy).Due to being raised by elves, overtime Buddy starts to believe that he really is an elf.Sadly one day at the factory,Buddy hears some of the other elves saying that they can not believe,that he does not realise that he is a human!
After hearing this,he tells Papa Elf that he wants to go and meet his real father(who does not know that Buddy has even been born).After hearing all of this,Buddy becomes very determined to give his dad the best Christmas ever.Though due to his dad now being too stuck into his job,Buddy has a huge mountain to climb,to get his dad to join in the spirit of Christmas.
View on the film:
Though the scenes where Will Ferrall is stuffing his face full of sweets,made me cringe (and not in the way that the film makers were hoping for)due to how forced the joke felt.Surprisingly,Ferrall makes Buddy stand out from all of his other fantastic characters,by removing any sense that Buddy has a very inflated-ego.and replacing it with a very natural sweet (though not sugar-coated) personality.Ferrall is given huge support,by a shining performance from Zooey Deschanel as the wonderfully punk style Jovie.Deschanel impressively shows Jovie going from being very agitated,to finding Buddy completely irresistible in a very enjoyable way.
Whilst the screenplay by David Berenbaum,could be seen as a very broad up date of A Christmas Carol (with Buddys dad having to learn the true meaning of Christmas)Berenbaum thankfully,gives most of the traditional Xmas set pieces for films,a fun modern trust (such as having the elves make modern plastic toys)Smartly David makes sure that the story is always the heart of the film,and that you are always following Buddy,and hoping to see his dad accept him for what he is...
Final view on the film:
A great film for the whole fame,with a stunning cast and a heart-warming story.