Like "Santa Claus-The Movie" It's half of a good film

Rating: 7/10 (27 December 2014)

While at the North Pole, the first half of the film is almost magical, with homage to the Rankin-Bass animations and other Christmas classics. The good supporting cast, including Zooey Deschanel, does a fine job. However, James Caan (as Elf's real father) is a "cooler" and sucks all the life out of the story, along with the dreadful office scenes. (I found the mail-room and "midget" book-author sub-plots to be stupid.) Like "Santa Claus" it's very uneven, and only comes back-to-life at the very end. Both Bob Newhart and Ed Asner are fine as "Papa Elf" and "Santa". Will Ferrell is surprisingly good as a 6 ft. tall "Elf". But NYC is not at all magical here, except for Rockefeller Plaza. Please note that Gimbels Dept. Store went out of business about 16 years before this movie was made. "Zooey" is adorable as "Mrs. Elf" at the movie's end.