New on Blu-ray Disc: Elf

Directed by Jon Favreau, written by David Berenbaum, 97 minutes, rated PG.

The first few minutes of the funny comedy “Elf,” now out on Blu-ray disc, features a scene in which a dozen of the little darlings dart screaming from a burning tree house reminiscent of the one inhabited by the Keebler elves.

In what’s apparently a cookie-cooking mishap, the elves’ ovens burst into flames, leaving the tree engulfed in fire and the terrified tiny ones running for their lives. If you listen carefully, you can hear one especially frazzled elf commenting that if only he had been a cobbler, none of this would have happened to him.

In the real world, nothing is funny about a fire. Still, the way it’s handled here is unexpected and uproarious. Though the scene has nothing to do with the film’s plot, it does help to establish the dark, absurdist tone director Jon Favreau favors early on.

In the movie, Will Ferrell is Buddy, a bumbling, 30-year-old man-child who, as an orphaned infant, crawled into Santa’s (Ed Asner) sack one Christmas Eve and was swept away to the North Pole. There, in spite of his lumbering, decidedly non-elfin size, he was raised as an elf by Papa Elf (a perfectly cast Bob Newhart), who eventually encourages Buddy to return to New York City to reconnect with his real-life father, Walter (James Caan), a difficult man who has long been a mainstay on Santa’s naughty list.

Upon arriving in Manhattan, Buddy takes a day job as a department store elf--and the movie gets a lift, flirting with the sort of comedy David Sedaris captured in his biting, hilarious series, “The Santaland Diaries.” Ultimately, Favreau sidesteps Sedaris’ caustic brand of cynicism, but not before getting in a few clever jabs at the gross commercialization of the Christmas season. It’s only then that he adopts a more family-friendly tone and bolsters what the holiday season is supposed to mean.

Mary Steenburgen, Daniel Tay and Zooey Deschanel offer support as Buddy’s loving step mom, lonely half-brother, and love interest, respectively, but they have nothing on Ferrell, who finds himself in a movie that realizes his true gifts as a comedian.

Grade: B