I don’t find most comedic actors of the modern age funny.  By that, I mean that most comedies with big name stars tend to fall flat on me, and I think it is vecause of the main leads.  Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Paul Rudd, Jason Sudekis, Zach Galifanakis, Melissa McCarthy, and most of the others never seem to touch my funny bone the way that they seem to for others.  I feel like it can’t be just me, but this actors continue to make movie after movie, and people flock to them like crazy.  The only mainstream film-comedian who I seemed to enjoy, for a time, was Will Ferrell, in films like Talladega Nights, Anchorman, and Kicking and Screaming.  I don’t know exactly when it was, but he too began to fail on me, but not before making one of my favorite Christmas movies.

Elf is a fun movie, through and through, a good story about a funny character.  It follows Buddy, who as a baby stumbled into Santa’s bag, and was raised by elves to be an elf.  Once he is an adult, he realizes that he is a human, and embarks on a quest to find his real father, in New York City, and find out why his father is on Santa’s Naughty List.  As simplistic as the story is, it is held together by the energy of the lead actor, which holds the entire film together.

Will Ferrell is perfect as the naïve and always excitable Buddy, who sees the world of New York through different eyes than most.  Though the whole innocent “child-like” man in an adult world has been done before, like in Tom Hanks’s Big, Will Ferrell has the charisma and charm on-screen to hold that idea together.  He is so believable as a wandering and uninformed ball of joy, in a way that no other actor could pull off in the modern age.  I could see Charlie Chaplin pull it off, in a silent film of the early age, but many others wouldn’t have had the charming nature to fit the role.

The director, Jon Favreau, always seems to bring a charmingly light nature to his films, and this one doesn’t disappoint.  The film is so pleasant to watch, innocent and charming, but with a solid message behind it.  Buddy’s father, played by James Caan, is a man who has lost his sprit, a modern Scrooge of sorts.  But, unlike Scrooge, all it takes to bring him back is the realization that what he has is more important than what he wants, which is just money.  Is it the most original character?  No.  But, he isn’t the purpose of the film; he is simply the means to put Buddy in this world, a way for the comedy to start.  Generally, that would agitate me, but in this case, I enjoy it.  The dialouge and charm of the lead make the film worth watching, regardless of its basic nature.  A good movie, and a great one for the holiday season.