Here we are yet another Christmas movie in my top 100 list this one doesn’t feel that old to me despite it being 17 years old being released in November 2003. Produced on a budget of $33m it went to amass $222m at the box office. It starred Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Tay, Bob Newhart and Ed Asner. (And is it only me that thinks that Bob Newhart looks like Rudy Giuliani). Written by David Berenbaum and directed by Jon Favreau it has a friend in Rotten Tomatoes but not quite with IMDb as they gave this a 6.9 out of 10 whilst Rotten almost agreed with me with a 84%. With a clear profit being made and a Christmas movie that was just fun without a real villain undermining everything it is just a fun loving movie. Shall I give you an overview of the plot?
It centres around Buddy The Elf who was born and left at an orphan who one Christmas managed with crawl into Santa’s Sack and got taken back to the North Pole. He is taken in by an elf who raises him as their own but he was clearly not an elf as he was way too big and way too slow doing the elf jobs of building toys. He overhears elves talking about him being a human forcing his ‘father’ to reveal his parent’s names Susan Wells and Walter Hobbs. Sadly, Susan had died but Walter had married and has a family and works in a successful book publisher’s, with his team creating children’s books. Buddy the elf travels with his elf like hopes, dreams and expectations that everything is just perfect and lovely everywhere. He arrives in New York ready for a shock to his system as not everyone he meets is full of the joys of Christmas. Searching for his father and falling into a job in a department store the story follows his relocation in New York with many japes and adventures to follow.
OK you have to like Christmas to appreciate this movie but then again you can also enjoy if you are a big Will Ferrell fan. As his stupidity and playing the innocent and ever loving elf is a perfect role for him. The innocence and pure excitement over absolutely everything he does from necking a 3 litre bottle of coke to hearing that his good friend Santa is going it arrive at the department store only to be disappointed by the imposter. The main villain is his dad who want’s nothing to do with him until he is convinced that this lunatic is actually an elf and then the evil ones are the NY Park Rangers, but you can work this one out for yourself. If you want to watch a fun and silly Christmas movie you couldn’t go to far wrong with this one.
Next up in the number 66 slot is another entry from a particular series of movies meaning that there are just two left after the next one.
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