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Buddy is a regular-sized man who was raised as an elf by Santa Claus. When the news is finally broken to Buddy that he's not a real elf, he decides to head back to his place of birth, New York City, in search of his biological family.
The cast wrings laughs out of David Berenbaum's script as if it were a damp washcloth, but even they have trouble selling frenetic button-pushing as the Christmas spirit.
Sure, Elf feels a little too feel-good at the end, but what do you expect? It's a Christmas movie! Anything else would be the cinematic equivalent of finding coal in your stocking.
Will Ferrell has the ability to turn those wide eyes and that big body into a potent comic weapon, so Elf gets a good number of laughs from his complete, innocent abandonment to his role as a lummox-size elf.
Raise a glass of cheer to Ferrell and Favreau. They might not have created a full-scale holiday classic here, but they've certainly given us a fresh, sparkly new bauble to hang on our perennial tree.
Ferrell is a hoot. So is much of this witty holiday family entertainment, which, up until the end, when the "true spirit of Christmas" must be reaffirmed, happily favors slapstick over treacle.