Blu-Ray Review: Elf -- Ultimate Collector's Edition
Every year, Hollywood studios attempt to seize on the magic of the Christmas season and put out what they hope will be not only a big holiday hit, but a film that families will treasure for years to come. Generally speaking, they fail, making a film that is instead hard to watch one season, let alone all of them. In the past decade only two holiday hits have broken out and become indelible Christmas classics. The first is Love, Actually. The second, is the Will Ferrell comedy Elf. It's almost hard to believe that there was a time when studios and journalists balked at the idea of giving a guy like Jon Favreau a budget as big as Elf had. Of course, now that he's turned in two superhero hits with the Iron Man franchise and has excited folks with next year's Cowboys and Aliens, the idea of him having nailed the wonderful Christmas comedy seems like a no-brainer. At the time of release, no one had any idea that what Favreau and Will Ferrell had done together was not only a seasonal hit, but a classic that would be watched year after year and even change the English language as we know it (Ginormous is in the dictionary now, thank you very much.) But that's exactly what they did.
Now, Elf has finally made its way to a special edition Blu-ray box set that comes with plenty of goodies, just in time for another holiday season. The Blu-ray is simply a high resolution re-release of the old Elf "Infinifim" dvd release. Going through the special features I couldn't find anything new. That said, "Infinifilm" was the high watermark for many years for bonus features on dvds, and this simple repackage will prove to be a treasure trove for anyone who hasn't already taken the time to sit down with the hours of features on the disc. 10 Minutes of deleted scenes, an hour and a half of "making of" featurettes (many of them geared towards teaching kids about movie magic and keeping them involved in the features), sing along "Elf Karaoke" (years earlier and light speed ahead of this year's Fairyoke on The Tooth Fairy), and separate commentaries from both Favreau and Ferrell.
The gift box itself is a holiday tin with Ferrell on the front. Inside you'll find a stocking to hang by the fire, two pages of gift tags to put on presents, a refrigerator magnet picture frame, a short soundtrack to the film and of course the film itself, packaged separately as to sit on your shelf with all of its other Blu-ray friends without feeling like it has to live all alone in its box. All in all, it is a cute little gift set, perfect as a holiday gift or for anyone who wants to watch this classic in as high a definition as they can.
Elf is available now from Warner Home Video.
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