Elfo: il Natale musicale di Buddy

While it is not one of my favourite films, festive or not, 'Elf' is nonetheless an entertaining and charming film and one of Will Ferrell's better films. Being someone who also loves musicals and Christmas, part of me was looking forward somewhat to 'Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas'.

My thoughts on it are that it is not quite as bad as has been made out here, but it doesn't really live up to 'Elf' and promises more than it delivers. There are far worse Christmas specials, 'Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer', 'Star Wars Holiday Special' and particularly 'The Christmas Tree' are far worse and notoriously so. There are also far better, strong examples being the best of Rankin/Bass like 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer', 'Frosty the Snowman' and 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.

Starting with the positives, the animation is very well done, with lots of colour and detail and also liked the attention to expressions. Also thought the voice acting was very good, Ed Asner especially is spot on as Santa.

Jim Parsons likewise is a spirited Buddy and Gilbert Gottfried has fun with his character, though he doesn't quite overcome the tendency to go overboard.

The opening song number is catchy, starting 'Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas' on a promising note, while the music score is playful enough.

However, too many things work against 'Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas'. The rest of the songs are unmemorable, a few even downright irritating and add far less than they should do, actually they could have been excised and nobody would miss a thing. While the voice acting is fine generally Mark Hamill has definitely done far better work than here.

'Elf: Buddy's Musical Christmas' doesn't fare very well in the story department. It lacks the warmth and heart of 'Elf', and lacks even more in charm. It treads far too much familiar ground and further suffers from being twice as long as it should have been, seeing as the story felt very stretched and padded out by the musical numbers. This affects the momentum of the second half where it runs out of steam.

Dialogue is corny rather than witty and veers on the saccharine, while the already tired gags go beyond breaking point and the message starts contradictory (missing the point of what 'Elf' was all about) and then is lost amidst everything else.

Overall, lacklustre but not without its merits. 4/10 Bethany Cox

This cynical cash in animation short basically retells the story of Elf, the Will Ferrell film without any of the charm and many of the cast from the original film.

Ed Asner does reprise his role to voice Santa who tells the grown up Buddy who thinks he is an Elf in the North Pole that he is actually human who stowed away in Santa's bag as a baby.

His real dad is Walter Hobbs living in New York who has been on the naughty list for years.

Buddy travels to see his father who works at a publishing company with a horrid boss. Walter is taken aback at first to see this grown up infant but Buddy's relentless cheer transforms him and when Santa comes to deliver presents the curmudgeonly Walter gets the festive fever.

Because this is labelled as a musical we have to put up with some mind numbingly dull songs. Even the animation is not much to shout home about.

It would be just be better to put the Ferrell film on.

Calm down, people. It's okay if you don't like this special. Don't worry, you have every right not to like this, you just gotta believe that there are a lot of Christmas specials out there that are WAY worse than this. I mean, sure; It's not the best Christmas special of all time, and it's not nearly as good as the 2003 film with Will Ferrell, but that doesn't REALLY mean it's the world's worst Christmas special. The reason why it's practically like this is that, in case you didn't know, Elf (2003) had a Broadway musical back in 2010. It was called "Elf: The Musical". I have not seen that musical, but it's actually good. I like this special, because it had great songs, nice animation, hilarious voice acting, an interesting story, and likable characters. Though, I'll admit, the scene where one elf was all like "ALL THE TAHHME!!!!!" is kind of creepy, but this special as a whole is not the Christmas special from hell. Wanna know what's the REAL worst Christmas special of all time? Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer is worse than this, Eight Crazy Nights is worse than this, The Christmas Tree (1991) is not only worse than Buddy's Musical Christmas, but THAT special is the second worst Christmas special of all time, where as Rapsitti Street Kids: Believe in Santa is the world's worst Christmas special of all time. Personally, I'd prefer to stick to this special than Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer. If you don't like this, that's okay, just believe that there are a lot worse Christmas specials out there than this.

Whyyyyy? Terrible Rehash of the original. They took funny gags and lines and beat them to death. Nothing at all fresh.And the songs sounded like someone beating a cat against a mailbox. So many things could have been done to make it as fun as the first. I was excited when I read Ed Asner was involved but now I am sorry he was.

How about Walter,Emily and Michael go visit Elf and Movies new baby for Christmas. Miles finch and Morris and Eugene and they see who can write a better Christmas book. Mailroom dude works in the toy factory. Anything other than this. I guarantee this will not become a classic. I'm trying to come up with any positives but it's not happening.

I had very low expectations for this... thing. It still couldn't meet them. The first song went completely against the moral of the original Elf (2003). Santa sings about how he wishes the elves would stop singing. That's completely against the whole meaning of Elf! There truly was nothing good about this movie. The actors did okay with the bottom of the barrel writing they were given, except for Mark Hamill, who sounded like a robot, reading his lines with no life, no personality. The only reason I didn't give it a 1 is because Edward Asner actually did a very good job as Santa, who was the narrator. Once again, this good performance was ruined by awful writing. The worst part about this sorry excuse for a TV movie though, is that it ruined the story that formed a Christmas classic, Elf. The final scene might have earned itself a third star, if it weren't for Buddy being very annoying. He actually managed to be even more annoying than he had been all movie long. But to sum it all up, this thing had the cheesiest lines and songs that I've ever heard in a movie. Do yourself a favor and, if you taped it, or it's on again, don't watch this. Sit down on the couch, and watch the original Elf. That can actually be considered a movie. This remake is pure junk.