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I picked this DVD up along with some other quality DVD’s on a past trip (including Family Guy Volume 2, Shrek 2, Legally Blonde (for $10 bucks), and Day After Tomorrow) so I got some work ahead of me. I saw this movie last year in the theater and fell in love with it. I waited too long for this DVD and let’s see how it does, eh? To boot, this bad boy is a double disc set. It is also the first time I included the exact running time of the extras and it is something I continue to this day. This being the first time I did it, though, not all of them have the running time of the extra next to it.
The Main Characters
--Buddy (Will Ferrell) was given up for adoption when he was a baby and on one Christmas managed to sneak into Santa’s bag. He became an elf but later learned he was human and his real father was in New York City, so he goes to find him.
--Walter (James Caan) is Buddy’s father. He doesn’t know that he had a son and is surprised when Buddy shows up, and wants him to leave him alone.
--Jovie (Zooey Deschannel) is a store elf and is there as the love interest for Buddy.
The Setting
We start in the North Pole but end up in the city that never sleeps. (New York City if you didn’t know).
The Plot
Buddy is an elf. He’s not a normal elf though. In fact he’s not really an elf at all. He is a human who lives in the North Pole working in Santa’s workshop. He ended up in the North Pole shortly after his mother gave him up for adoption. Santa Claus showed up at his orphanage and he snuck into Santa’s bag and Santa just couldn’t bring him back when he got back to the North Pole. So Buddy the Elf was born. He didn’t quite fit in, as he was about 2 feet faller than everyone else and later learns that he is actually a human. His Papa Elf (played excellently by Bob Newhart) tells him the truth; his mother gave him up for adoption and later died, and his father doesn’t know he exists. So Buddy leaves en route to New York City to find his father.
He ends up in the big city and fits in about as well as a 30 year old dressed in an elf’s suit and with the mentality of a little child. He finds his father who thinks he’s just a crazy loon. He ends up in a department store and meets Jovie, one of the store elves gearing up for Santa’s appearance there. Without going into too much detail, Buddy manages to get in the good graces of Walter’s son (Michael), his wife (played by Mary Steenburgen) and Jovie. Of course, things take a turn for the worse when Buddy accidentally ruins Walter’s book deal with the great Miles Finch, children’s author extraordinaire, and Walter tells him he wish he was never here. Buddy leaves on Christmas Eve and only a timely crash of Santa’s sleigh in Central Park can save the day, and the holiday.
Movie Review
Elf really snuck up on me last year. I saw it on a whim without hearing really anything about it. I am glad I saw it. It combines straight out physical comedy and a heart-warming story into a winning holiday movie. The story seems to be in two parts. The first part is the comedy act with Will Ferrell giving a great performance and in my opinion his greatest leading role to date. The supporting cast fits in quite well too. James Caan as the uncaring father and the foil to Will’s jolliness works greatly and Jovie as the love interest is a perfect choice. As holiday movies go, this is one of my favorites of the last few years (beaten really only by Love Actually in my opinion) and could be watched by people of all ages. It doesn’t cater to anyone age group, and don’t let the PG rating scare you away. It’s funnier than any other Christmas comedy since National Lampoon’s Christmas Carol. Definitely recommended for the holidays.
DVD Features
A) Extras
This is one of those Infinifilm DVD’s where you are in control of the movie, but I rather like the conventional scrolling through the extras than having them pop-up on my screen while watching the movie.
---Disc 1---
1) Infini Film Beyond the Movie Features
---A) Fact Track
This is a feature that’s been popping up lately. It’s a Fact Track that pops up intermittently during the film which when selected brings you to some extras, and also some facts appear on the screen. The features that pop up are the same as the various extras on the Beyond the Movie and All Access Pass Features, just broken up into minute or two snippets.
2) Infini Film All Access Pass Features
---A) Feature Commentary 1
Director Jon Favreau does this commentary, and I’ll provide some of the highlights, since I’m at my PC while watching it. Jon talks about using old techniques in the beginning of the film (stop-motion animation, forced perspective) because it gave the film a nostalgic look. All the animated characters are his voice too! The baby in the beginning is actually a girl and Jon talks about needing many babies on set. He mentions how New York was sensitive to its filming permits since it was a year after 9/11. All the NY exteriors were done in NY, too, not in Canada (though some of it was filmed there). He mentions Louie Prima being the song as Buddy runs around in NYC and how some didn’t want it on the film, but Jon wanted it, so it’s there. Jon mentions that his scene as a doctor caused him to go on the Atkins diet and lose 40 pounds. The scene with James, Will and Jon was one take with no edits and James started cracking up and turned his back to the camera. The snowball scene is one of Jon’s favorite shots, with the CGI snowballs, the John Woo shot, and the Magnificent Seven shot. They had Will signed up for the movie while he was still with SNL and before he got really big in Old School. So Old School came out and the studio loved that Will was in their movie and promoted it well. Jon said it was very gratifying because it had “legs,” that people were telling people about it via word-of-mouth and that it was number 1 it’s second week after being number 2 the first week. About the Central Park scene: It was at first a great big news deal, but Jon wanted it to be a local news thing, a small story. He mentions it was supposed to be cop cars’ chasing Buddy and Santa and it was out of hand, so he created the Central Park Rangers (and compares them to the Ringwraiths from LOTR). They wanted it different than just running around authorities and more about Christmas Spirit and in fact, the Christmas Spirit running the sleigh was something added in the re-writes. Jon finishes the commentary by talking about all the extras that are on the DVD. This was actually a quite good commentary. I wasn’t expecting too much from it but was pleasantly surprised about how much Jon told us about the movie.
---B) Feature Commentary 2
Will Ferrell does this commentary. I wasn’t at the computer when watching it, so it will be a bit shorter than the Favreau commentary. Honestly, to be honest with you, I was disappointed with this commentary. I thought it would be a hilarious, enjoyable commentary to listen to, but Will seemed very serious on the track. Maybe I’m being unfair since he’s known as a comic actor, but I definitely expected something different. He talked pretty much the whole way through, and told us a bunch of things about the movie, but nothing really new. I expected different things from the commentaries and in the end I would have to recommend going with the Favreau commentary.
---C) Deleted/Alternate Scenes
There are 8 deleted scenes: Hockey, Buddy Talks with Papa, Walter and the Nun, Papa Tells Buddy the Truth, Buddy and Leon, Walter and Emily, Extended Tuck-Ins, Extended Miles Finch Fight. You can listen to it with Jon’s commentary or without. The hockey scene is hilarious (Buddy checking elves left and right and finishing with a goal), then it’s Buddy knocking his head into things and knocking a Christmas tree into a fire. Buddy Talks with Papa is an extended version of what was seen in the movie, with not much too it. The Walter and the Nun scene is pretty funny, as the Nun wants to make money with a bake sale and Walter tells her how stupid it is and to think outside the box. Papa Tells Buddy the Truth is where Buddy finds out he’s a human. Buddy and Leon is an extension of the scene from the movie, with Leon being placed in by a stand-in since it was stop motioned later on. The Walter and Emily scene is where Walter tells Emily about Buddy. The extended tuck in and fight are just longer versions of the scenes in the movie. All told, it’s about 11 and a half minutes long. The commentary from Jon adds why some scenes were cut. The hockey scene had to go because Buddy seemed like he was hurting the elves and they were looking to cut out some scenes since the movie was long already, and the North Pole stuff was the slowest.
---D) Behind the Scenes
------1) Tag Along with Will Ferrell (7:00)
Basically this is a day in the life of Will Ferrell on the set of Elf.
------2) Film School for Kids (20:36)
This is a really cool feature, and not only for kids. They go over how the movie goes from concept to film in about 20 minutes. They go over all of the jobs that people have and neat things like that.
------3) How They Made the North Pole (11:30)
They take us through each step of creating and setting up the North Pole set.
------4) Lights, Camera, Puffin! (6:35)
Ahhh, the special effects. They talk about the clay stop motion stuff, the troll in the film, to the narwhal. Pretty neat stuff.
------5) That’s a Wrap (12:11)
A mini-featurette about the post-production of the film, with the editing, the special effects and score being recorded and put in.
------6) Film Dictionary
An 11-page dictionary of film terms.
The following extras are DVD-Rom features:
3) Script-to-Screen
This is one of those neat features where the movie plays side by side with the actual script. Of course, if you don’t want to read it on screen, you can print the entire damn thing.
4) Image Gallery
This is a collection of 48 pictures. Some are from the movie, some are cast photos, and some are from unused scenes. Pretty good selection of pictures.
5) Be An Elf
You can import a picture of yourself and dress up like an Elf.
6) Make Your Own Story Book
You make your own storybook, yo.
7) Printables
These are games/activities you can print.
---Disc 2---
1) Infini Film Beyond the Movie Features
---A) Kids on Christmas (6:29)
Kids sound off on Christmassy topics like describing Santa, North Pole, his sleigh, etc. They give some cute answers but really that’s about it.
---B) Deck The Halls (10:24)
This is a featurette on people who go all out on the holidays in terms of decorating. They seem to get weirder as they go, all leading up to a lady to dresses as Frosty all holiday. Pretty disturbing if you ask me. The houses they showed were pretty cool though.
---C) Santa Mania (8:28)
A couple of features on Santa-related things.
---D) Christmas in Tinseltown (6:49)
This mainly deals with the Hollywood Christmas Parade.
2) Infini Film All Access Pass Features
---A) Theatrical Trailer (2:29)
The trailer for Elf. That’s it.
---B) Special Announcements
You get three trailers (Secondhand Lions [2:31], Polar Express [2:22], and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban DVD [:32]) as well as an ad for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption [:31].
---C) Music from Elf
This is a pretty neat feature where Jon Favreau goes through every music clip and describes why he picked the ones he did, and it’s then followed by the clip from the movie that song is played during. They should include stuff like this on all DVD releases, as I really enjoyed it on this and on Love Actually. It’s 11:58 total without the movie clips.
3) Fun N’ Games
---A) Elf Karaoke
There are three songs you can sing along too, We Wish You a Merry Christmas, Jingle Bells and Deck The Halls. You can select to hear the voices with it and it shows the lyrics of course.
---B) Read-Along
This is an Elf book about Buddy being a special elf. It’s quite different from the movie, but definitely like one of those Christmas books you’d read as a kid.
---C) Buddy’s Adventure
These are some games you can play. They are: The Race Down Mt. Icing, Fix Santa’s Sleigh, Elf in the City and Snowball Fight. Race Down Mt. Icing I couldn’t get to work, Fix Santa’s Sleigh is an easy trivia game, Elf in the City is a stupid game trying to get to Central Park, and the Snowball fight is a snowball fight. Doesn’t work on Laptops though L.
The DVD-Rom content is the same as Disc 1.
B) Audio/Video
The movie comes in both widescreen and fullscreen versions. The widescreen is formatted in 1.85:1 ratio and is a great transfer. There are a lot of bright colors (especially in the North Pole scenes with the whites) and this handles it very well. The audio comes in 5.1 Dolby Surround and is a decent mix. It’s mainly talking so the surrounds aren’t needed too much, so it’s just there really.
Video: 9.0
Audio: 8.0
C) Liner Notes
It seems the norm nowadays, but this DVD comes in a swank slipcase with a holofoil cover that folds open to reveal the extras. As for liner notes, there’s a 4-page booklet on the Elf movie, with the extras on the inside and the chapter listings on the back. There’s an ad for Son of the Mask and Kangaroo Jack and then an Elf decoder for some sort of online game.
D) Easter Eggs
These first batches aren’t really Easter Eggs, but they’re cool nonetheless. There are tabs that you can select to get soundbites from the movie. They are found on disc one at the main page, the Infini film beyond the movie extras section main page and the Infini film all access pass extra features main page. On disc two at the main page, the Infini film all access pass extra features main page.
Overall Review
A great movie usually makes as a great DVD and this is no exception. The extras here are probably the best suited for the movie than I have ever seen. It combines all the usual extras one would get from other releases (behind the scenes, commentaries, etc) and adds in some great holiday themed extras (found on disc two). There are also some great games and fun things for the kiddies, and some great stuff for the adults to watch. The movie had staying power in the theaters last year because of the great message and meaning to it, and it was funny. The DVD will have those legs too. It will be watched for years to come. It makes for great holiday viewing and when it winds up in somebody’s stocking coming Dec. 25th, it will be a great addition to anyone’s collection.
Overall Rating
9.0
10.0 Perfect
9.0-9.5 Near Perfect, Highly Recommended
8.0-8.5 Really good disc, Recommended
7.0-7.5 Good DVD, Mildly recommended
6.0-6.5 Above Average DVD. Mildest of mild recommendations
5.0-5.5 Decent all around disc, but catch it on TV
4.0-4.5 Great Movie but horrible DVD
3.0-3.5 Horrible movie but great DVD
2.0-2.5 There’s at least some merit to this DVD, but not much.
1.0-1.5 Horrible DVD, don’t even bother
0.0-0.5 Worst DVD ever
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