What ultimately turns “Elf” from an okay movie to a good movie, is Will Ferrell. Will Ferrell gives such a good performance here and is both laugh out loud funny and endearing presenting such a conviction with his role and commits to this character giving a wide eyed exuberance throughout the entirety of the film, even when facing adversity and hardship. What “Elf” essentially has going for it in the long run is its sense of innocence approaching family and Buddy approaching the real world. The film, while a story about an man who thinks he’s an elf discovering the real world, it’s also about losing ones innocence and grasp on their inner-child.
While comic book movies are shooting to audiences in theaters at an almost rapid fire pace, very rarely does the film medium examine the person behind the superhero, the true human and “The Incredibles” does that. Few films such as the underrated “Unbreakable”, “Spider-Man 2” and “The Hulk” have taken the time to examine the psyche and basic mundane aspects of being a superhero and living with the persona as a human too. As a comic book geek since childhood I always relish the chance to catch my superheroes on the big screen despite the fact that rarely is the transference ever satisfying, but few films create their own heroes and then work from the ground up, and instead of focusing on the superhero aspect and then the human, films such as Shyamalan’s “Unbreakable” and this, work on focusing on the humanity and then the hero which is more secondary.