The Carrying On of A Wayward Son

Elf Bowling The Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike (2007)

IMDB score: 3.9 out of 10

There have been some pretty bad video game-to-movie adaptations released. And then there’s “Elf Bowling The Movie.”

Call me crazy but I think that this movie's prominent use of penguins on the DVD cover is intended to ride the coattails of another CGI animated flick featuring funny penguins.

Based on the briefly popular Internet game/work productivity dampener that saw Santa Claus cruelly using his elf buddies as pins in a game of bowling, this CGI animated movie takes that basic premise and stretches it to the point of ridiculousness.

Seriously, this movie is so loopy I honestly think it was made on a drunken bet.

The film’s story reimagines the legend of Santa Claus to include pirates, gangster penguins, union labor strikes and the island of Fiji.

As the movie begins, Santa and his brother Dingle Kringle are two toy-thieving pirates who sail the high seas making mischief — always finding time, though, to enjoy their favorite game, bowling.

While Dingle is unrepentantly bad, Santa yearns for a life where he doesn’t need to make a living stealing children’s toys and selling them back to their parents.

Santa, I realize that being a pirate may sound cool and all but if you have some moral issues about stealing kids’ toys (and you should) there are other jobs you can take. You like the oceanic, slightly homoerotic lifestyle of piracy? Join the Navy.

When the Kringle brothers’ penchant for cheating at bowling causes the crew to mutiny and make the duo walk the plank, they wind up in the North Pole. Encountering a band of elves, including one that apparently has use of the Force, Santa is hired on as the official leader/spokeman for the elves. Harnessing their deep-rooted desire to make toys, Santa seeks to repent for his toy-stealing ways and embarks on a new life as a yearly worldwide gift-giver.

Unfortunately, Dingle grows jealous of Santa’s success and seeks to overthrow his chubbier brother and take over the Christmas business for himself.

Oh, and the elves apparently enjoy being used as bowling pins.

What it says about an employee’s self-esteem when his biggest sense of joy comes from having his boss hurl a heavy ball at him, I don’t know. Bowling for elves, though, is a huge source of bonding between Santa and his pint-sized staff.

This, fortunately, is not the stupidest part of the movie, though. There’s also a wide-collection of half-assed songs (not nearly as bad as those found in “Romeo and Juliet: Sealed with a Kiss,” though), there’s some truly adult-oriented humor that most parents would find objectionable at the very least and then there’s the movie’s off-putting insistence at utilizing a racial caricature for one of its elves. Wrapple, the rappin’ elf, is a black elf who pops in and out of the movie to offer an “urban” perspective on things — including, but not limited to, suggesting that Detroit could use the magical powers of an elf to clean up things. Weird.

I can see why a movie like “Elf Bowling” was released.

With the commercialization of Christmas at an all-time high, there are an increasing number of Christmas presents that people need to buy. Once you buy all the important people in your life gifts, you still have to find crappy stocking stuffers to hand out to the rest of the world. “Elf Bowling” is that perfect gift for such an occasion.

Just thoughtful enough to not be thoughtless, giving a young distant relative the movie is the perfect way to say “you’re not as important to me as my own kids but I thought you should have this terrible movie so that your parents think I’m a swell guy.”