Elf

What went wrong with Elf? Hard to say. Ferrell at this point is kind of like Robin Williams, Eddie Murphy or Robin Williams at their manic primes, all over the screen and always able to take over any scene. Probably the script from David Berenbaum (speaking of Murphy, Berenbaum also wrote the script for The Haunted Mansion) and the directing of Jon Favreau weren’t enough to overcome the horrendous core concept: Ferrell as a tot sneaks into Santa’s bag one Christmas Eve and for some reason can’t be returned to his parents, remaining at the North Pole thinking he’s just an oversized elf to the age of 30.

At which point the “truth” becomes clear to him and, voila, he’s told who his real father is. Off we go to Manhattan and the completely different, angry, mean James Caan. Sure, Ferrell has plenty of bits to get laughs but the idea here is to make a movie. M-o-v-i-e. Anchorman is coming on cable soon, hopefully will be better.

not recommended