I saw some animal on TwiX sneering that 2003's Elf wasn't a good movie and people only liked it because they were kids when they fell in love with it and don't want to admit it sucks. Yeah, his inner child is on a metaphysical milk carton somewhere. Coincidentally, I was able to snag the 4K disc for only $5 so even though I already have it on Blu-ray and HD digital, I upgraded. How is it? Read on...
For those avoiding Christmas movies for the past 22 years, here's the quick recap: Will Ferrell plays Buddy, a human baby who crawled into Santa Claus's (Ed Asner) sack when Ol' St. Nick was delivering to the orphanage he was at. When discovered at the North Pole, an elf looked at the brand of diaper - Lil' Buddy - and just as Marty McFly's mother thought he was named Calvin Klein from his underwear, Buddy became known as Buddy and was given to the childless Papa Elf (Bob Newhart) to raise.
No one explained to Buddy why he was so large as he grew into Will Ferrell, so when he finally overhears other elves discussing how he was too dumb to realize he's not an elf, his world is shattered. Papa Elf explains that his father was a man named Walter Hobbs (James Caan) who'd knocked up his girlfriend but didn't know and that his mother had given him up for adoption then died like this was a Disney movie without Walter ever knowing of Buddy's existence.
Armed with this information and a snow globe of New York City, he travels to the Big Apple to find Walter at his Empire State Building office where he publishes defective children's books to be on Santa's Naughty List. Walter has no idea who this large weirdo in the elf costume is, but when it's confirmed Buddy is his son, he takes him home to stay with his wife, Emily (Mary Steenburgen), and son, Michael (Daniel Tay). Buddy briefly gets a job at Gimbels department store (a real store chain that went out of business in 1986) where he meets Jovie (Zooey Deschanel), a jaded coworker whom he takes a liking to.
The bulk of the plot involves Buddy wearing everyone down with his relentless, guileless enthusiasm. The script by David Berenbaum as directed by Jon Favreau is cute without being cloying, refreshingly uncynical except for the cynical characters, and actually safe for kids with a PG rating. And the ending involving New Yorkers pulling together to express enough Christmas cheer to make Santa's sleigh fly seems so quaint considering they just installed a radical Ugandan Islamist Communist who's never held a real job in his life as Mayor and is now promising to divide and punish the disfavored folks. Elf was made on location in the wake of 9/11, but NYC just surrendered to the forces that brought down the Twin Towers.
I can see why some may be adverse to Ferrell's crazy-eyed performance, but he plays it straight instead of making Buddy seem dumb instead of sheltered. Caan probably had no effing idea what was happening, but that older style works. This was also probably Peter Dinklage's best-known role before he became Shorty Lannister on Throne Games and his one scene is a classic. Deschanel is cute but nearly unrecognizable as a blonde without her trademark bangs. She also shows off her pipes with two renditions of "Baby It's Cold Outside" which made her later She & Him musical project not the usual actor side foolery, but actually quality retro pop.
As for the new disc, they've made a new scan and grade in the correct 1.85:1 aspect ratio, correcting the previous Blu-ray's matted 1.78:1 AR. (Unfortunately, the included BD disc is the old one, not a 1080p disc of this new master. Booooooo to cheapness!) The cinematography and visuals aren't particularly flashy so the fact the disc's HDR10 grade (no Dolby Vision) seems capped to 613 nits isn't a major flaw. What it does deliver is solid primary colors and surprising detail in the costumes which makes the felt look like it could be felt. They used forced perspective camera tricks to make Ferrell seem enormous and the higher resolution slightly exposes where the seams are if you know what to look for.
Unlike what the Scrooge on the Internet says, Elf is a sweet family movie and Christmas classic. The two commentaries - one by Favreau that sounds informative from the bit I sampled and the other by Ferrell (didn't check) - and over an hour of making-of featurettes are all recycled from the old release, so they only new thing is the 4K feature. If you want the best possible visual presentation and you can get it cheap on sale, this is a no-brainer. If you're not so picky, but want a better version if you don't want to go the disc route, look for a sale on the 4K digital version for $5. It's a Movies Anywhere title so there are a lot of purchase and playback options.
Score: 8.5/10. Buy it.
