- Santa Kringle
The Elf Bowling games fell under the same curse that impacts seasonal video games; Fun until the shallowness kicks in. Elf Bowling was very popular at its inception in 1999 but by the next year, the appeal wore off on most of the public. There were way too many sequels, which featured the great bowling games of shuffleboard and bocce, that tried to recapture the lightning but only those who were as petty as the gameplay enjoyed them during the brief holiday period.
So, of course, a movie must be made to cash in on something which was freeware and lost all its popularity. Elf Bowling the Movie came out in the timely fashion of the year 2007. It is a dull unfunny 3D animated film with a cast and crew that must be ashamed to have their names associated with it. The film also has a subtitle, "The Great North Pole Elf Strike", which is highly inaccurate, doesn't take place, and shows how misguided and confusing this film is for something based on a bowling game.
The film starts off in 600 AD, where a crew of stereotypical pirates are currently creating a giant time paradox. Named the "Filthy Toe", the ship is run by Santa Kringle and his hammy evil brother Dingle Kringle. Santa and his crew steal toys from all over the world, cause their evil I guess, only for Santa to secretly feel remorseful and send them out in mailed baskets in the middle of the ocean. After a really confusing fight over a bowling game, the brothers are kicked off the ship, frozen in ice, and are saved by three annoying and ugly elves. Believing Santa to be there mythical savior Whitebeard, they ask him to be their leader and be the one to deliver their toys to the world, cause their good I guess. Santa accepts it, planning to betray them later, only to enjoy the experience throughout the years while his brother is still evil and continues to plan to usurpe his brother's power for his own intentions.
I had to be very general writing that plot synopsis cause the script has a plot hole or glaring errors in every minute of the proceedings. It tries to be the next Shrek with its stupid adult jokes but they either fall flat or are offensive. For something based on a bowling videogame, it spends most of its time with a crappy Christmas fan fiction plotline instead of, you know, bowling. This story was written by Martin Olson, a man who has great experience writing comedy for animation with Rocko's Modern Life, Camp Lazlo, and Phineas and Ferb. Instead of being hilarious, his script is a horror with these following problems I have to point out:
What was the reason to have a Macguffin magical ball if it hardly mattered to the plot?
Why did the ball give the head elf Lex Jedi powers?
Why did the elves create over 6 trillion toys over many years for no real reason?
Why are the elves masochistic freaks who like to work all the time and enjoy being viciously hurt?
How are Santa and the rest of the characters able to survive more than 1400 years?
Why are the politics of unions inserted into a children's film?
Why is the black elf a racist caricature, who makes a truly offending joke literally at the end about the urban plight facing many African Americans?
What's with the sexist portrayals of women?
Why did Dingle destroy the elves' factory if he was just going to have them make toys again?
How and where did Dingle's penguin henchmen steal and storage all of the stolen toys?
Why is the head job decided only with one round of bowling?
How come everyone keeps forgetting that Dingle cheats all the time and has been doing evil things over the years?
How can Santa be the hero if he constantly loses to Dingle and only wins the important bowling games through technicalities?
The director doesn't help gliding over these and many more script dilemmas. All of the characters look like they started as claymation sculptures before being rendered in three-dimensions and suffer from clipping glitches. None of the elves have external auditory canals, so there giant ears are just a wad of flesh. Despite the ugly character designs, the director only seems to care about his extensive showcase of dancing programs during the many crappy song numbers. These dances also bring hindrances as the dancing is very very slow, doesn't match the tempo of the songs, and are mapped to many characters in the same shots. Probably the most infamous moment during the dance numbers is when a pile of money raining down just fades through the ground.
The voice acting also brings a share number of headshakes. The entire cast consists of five people, with one of them being the producer of the film. Veteran voice actor Joe Alaskey seems to try to bring something to table but the bad writing and being forced to either be goofy or harshly whiny derails anything. Tom Kenny is typecasted, of course, to do his usual Snively Whiplash voice and his high-pitch shrilling. Jill Talley does her best Madeline Kahn while Sean Hart does bland nothingness.
I'm still bummed out from Santa and the Ice Cream Bunny, but Elf Bowling the Movie is a very terrible example of the holiday cash-in. The pain may have been killed out of my system but I was still able to tear it apart with its waste of talent and waste of time.
TOMORROW'S ENTRY: We end the look at films with something that has been overlooked, the cash-in sequel to popular holiday entities.
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