Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie''s plot.  
There's a big hole at the center of Elf, and his name is Will Ferrell.  
 
The movie's premise is that Santa Claus (Ed Asner) accidentally hijacks a baby to the North Pole. The baby is named Buddy (played by Ferrell) and raised by a senior elf (Bob Newhart) as one of the North Pole's own. Eventually, Buddy is sent back to his home town of New York to find his biological father (James Caan).  
 
The opening scenes are a letter-perfect take-off on the Rankin-Bass Christmas TV specials. And Newhart's straight-to-the-camera, deadpan narration sets the perfect tone. But as soon as Buddy hits Manhattan, the movie starts going awry.  
 
There are many scenes of broad physical comedy where Buddy is overawed by modern life and misinterprets people's commands to him. If ever there was a pregnant premise for comedy, a naive, six-foot-tall elf set loose in unforgiving New York City ought to be it.  
 
But Will Ferrell is not the man for the job. Steve Martin and Jim Carrey have the wild abandon for this kind of thing, and heaven knows what elfin Robin Williams would have done with the role. But Ferrell, another of those "Saturday Night Live" vets who go for nothing beyond the quick laugh, can't milk a routine to save his life. And while everyone else in the movie seems sincerely committed to the story's potential sweetness, Ferrell's elf is little more than a variation on his "SNL" old routine as a hyperactive male cheerleader.  
 
Elf is inoffensive enough, and kids will probably lap it up. But even the children at the preview audience seemed more grossed out than cheered by some of the movie's Ferrelly Bros.-like humor, such as Buddy re-chewing discarded bubble gum or pouring maple syrup on everything he eats. If you're a discriminating adult, Elf probably won't be much more palatable.  
 
Elf is rated PG for minor adult language and references.  
 
