An amazing, brilliant, hilarious fun holiday romp.

Rating: Null/10 (24 November 2003)

*some spoilers*
Walking into the theater earlier today I expected Elf to be a funny, entertaining movie. I could never have excpected what was to follow. Not only is this a brilliant script with excellent direction, but Will Ferell is perfect as the role of Buddy the elf. The movie opens with a creative inroduction, using ideal narration to catch the viewer up on buddy's story. As a young boy, Buddy is at an orphanage because his mother had put him up for adoption and died several days later. His father never knew of his son. On Christmas Eve, Buddy is awakened when Santa comes down the chimney to deliver presents to the orphanage. The curious young Buddy crawls into Santa'a sack, and is brought back and raised as a Elf. Many years later, he sets out on a journey to find his real father, and to live life as the human he really is. What follows is a hilariously entertaining, wild romp as Buddy's story folds out at the absolute perfect pace, thanks to director Jon Favreau. Also tied into the story are a girl Buddy finds himself interested in, an angry vertically-challenged author working at his dad's publishing company, and a catastrophoc failure of Santa's sleigh engina, which only Buddy can fix. This is an amazing holiday movie for the whole family. Only Scrooge himself could dislike such a heartwarming, brilliant film.