So what if one Christmas Eve as Santa [Edward Asner] is doing his thing an orphan climbs into his sack and gets carried back to the North Pole and ends up being adopted by an elf and being raised as an elf while actually being a human?  Well this is what happened to Buddy [Will Ferrell] and eventually he kind of comes across the information that he isn’t an elf and that his biological father, Walter [James Caan], is on teh naughty list and wants to meet him.  So Buddy goes on a long journey to New York City and meets the family that could’ve been while sharing his Christmas cheer with the entire city.

Let me begin this post by noting that in case you are a weary parent wondering whether to watch this one with your children, be warned, this movie doesn’t exactly let the cat out of the bag but it definitely throws the idea out there on the Santa story.

I’m not the biggest fan of Will Ferrell.  He tends to overdo all of his characters and there are only a few of his films which it tends to work for me (i.e. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby and Step Brothers) and this movie isn’t one of them.  Sometimes I just can’t become objective at all, I can’t step back and see that it isn’t one of the most annoying comedians in film today trying to be funny when he isn’t rather than someone honestly owning the role that he is in.  When last did Will Ferrell play it subtle?  Now maybe this movie didn’t ask for subtlety but my goodness can Mr. Ferrell be any louder?  I felt like all he did for ninety minutes was to shout randomly about anything Christmas and it just attached itself to the end of my spinal cord and make it shiver continually wondering when he’s going to stop.

Now, let me not be all doom and gloom.  This movie was not a complete travesty; there are some good points for sure.  Some of the casting is really good, like James Caan as the cold hearted businessman who is doing what he thinks is right (i.e. taking it all seriously and trying to do great at work to keep his family happy at home) rather than doing what might be more fun, like spending more time with his family and enjoying the holidays.  I also loved seeing Zooey Deschanel (as I always do) in the movie and it was great to hear her singing again (check out her music here if you don’t already listen to it) and also the best part of this movie has to be the scene with Peter Dinklage as Miles Finch.  The scene with Dinklage works for the main fact that you have Ferrell throwing out offensive midget jokes while he as well as the audience knows he just doesn’t know he isn’t an elf and that was honestly hilarious to see Dinklage take down a man about three times his size.

Overall here is another Will Ferrell film with not that much to offer than too few funny moments and too many not so funny moments.   I definitely will not be watching this movie again anytime soon and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone unless you are one of those die hard Will Ferrell fans.

IMDB says 6.8/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 83%

I say 4.0/10