At a certain point, Christmas movies started getting dumb. They just ran out of ideas and we started getting films like Jingle All The Way. Elf is the first movie since Bill Murray's Scrooged to do some good for the holdiay's cinematic potential. It's made by smart people and this is an obvious fact that shows itself in every scene. Yes, the plot looks silly and uncreative. An elf is really a human and has to go find his real Dad. It looks dumb. Part of the fun of this movie is how big a surprise it is that it turns out to be great. It's not about plot. It's about humor. Every role is perfectly cast, every scene is designed in terms of achieving maximum comic potential, and Will Ferrell, who is ussually more annoying than not, has finally found the perfect role for his style of humor. This movie uses Christmas right and keeps us laughing so often that it's almost impossible to walk away unsatisfied.
