Great concept, poor delivery

Rating: 3/10 (4 November 2003)

Saw a preview showing and have to say that I was disappointed in the final product.
"Elf" is the story of Buddy (Will Farrell), who grows up at the North Pole after Santa finds him in his bag of toys after returning from another Christmas Eve. Buddy is raised as any other elf, but his human size starts to make life difficult. So off he goes to find his human father, played by James Caan. He soon finds that his real father already has a son that gets no attention.
The story concept is interesting enough, and for that reason the first 15 minutes (which show the back story up through Will Farrell's departing the North Pole) are fairly entertaining. The jokes about Buddy's size are not overplayed as they could have been. There's an effective scene that involves Buddy and jack-in-the-boxes that was understatedly funny.
Then, it all goes downhill. Farrell is effective as Buddy, doing a pretty good fish-out-of-water job in NYC. But a lot of the jokes that could have gone into the story seem left out. He seems to adjust way to quickly to his surroundings.
Things get a little better as Buddy discovers love, both for the opposite sex and for his long, lost father. But again it seems like the director misses what he was aiming for. There are a lot of missed opportunities to flush out James Caan's relationship with his young son. Instead we are quickly shown the distance between them, with very little else to go on.
The ending sequence is totally off the mark. The idea that Central Park would be deserted seems downright impossible, yet the movie progresses as if it's a real possibility.
In the end, the movie just doesn't deliver an its hilarious possibility.