Reviews

This was one of my favorite movies in 2003. Will Ferrell is brilliant as the Elf. The supporting cast is great too, especially Bob Newhart as his elf "dad". The characters are well written and it is a refreshing film to get lost in. Will Ferrell plays the elf with such innocence, he is so funny! This is not just a Christmas film but when the DVD comes out I will be watching "Elf" in July. The story progresses nicely, there are many lessons to be learned as you watch this movie. It touched my heart in many ways. I highly recommend this movie for kids AND adults, you won't regret it. Treat yourself and watch this "original" movie. Hollywood needs to make more like this.

The key word here is "potential". After seeing "Never Been Kissed", which I absolutely loved, I was on a search for another Michael Vartan movie. After checking all the choices, this movie seemed to be the logical choice of progression. It is the movie right after NBK and it is a romantic comedy. I must say Michael Vartan is fine in this movie, the city of New York is a great location, but there were definite challenges watching this movie. The main problem is in the script, some of the lines are laughable but in the wrong way. There were only a few moments when I could get into this film, it never captured me emotionally to get into the characters or to understand why the characters were feeling the way they were feeling. I think there should have been more development scenes for me to experience that. This is not the worst film ever made, how could it be with Michael Vartan in it. It simply could have been better than it was. The writer had some good ideas here but couldn't quite reach the goal. It had the faint reminders of "Serendipity" and "Sleepless in Seattle". I would only recommend this movie to those of us who simply need another Michael Vartan movie to experience.