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

It might not be Christmas but...wait what am I saying? All the stores have their Christmas stuff up anyway! Anyway, I feel bad for not knowing anything about the Elf Bowling flash game that this was based on. I've written over 16,000 Newgrounds reviews. You'd think they would have it! Anyway again, this was based on a flash game which from what I heard was nothing about bowling with elves as the pins. They decide to change this to make Santa a pirate for no reason. What do pirates have anything to do with Santa Claus? And what they do have anything to do with bowling? They took an idea that was already a weird version of Santa and made it even weirder. Oh, and the pirates only appear for the first four minutes in the entire film.Yes, there is absolutely no reason at all to make Santa a pirate. It's even more pointless than you think. Anyway, Santa has an evil brother named Dingle in this movie. Somewhere around 600 AD, he started delivering toys to all the people in the world. Well originally it was going to be he'd deliver them every day, according to this movie. He convinces the elves to narrow it down to just one day a year. That's incredibly stupid. Nothing important happens to Santa Claus for literally 1400 years. It's only at this point that Santa decides to kick Dingle out because he's still been committing crimes for over a thousand years. Took him long enough, I guess.Dingle tries to take over Christmas by challenging Santa to a bowling game where he cheats and gets disqualified. He doesn't get punished for this, so this is all completely pointless. In fact, you could have literally ended the movie right there are that point and nothing would have changed at that point. This movie is so bad it even gets the dates wrong. It keeps saying that Dingle has been around for 600 years even though he's been there for 1400 years. Can the writers of this movie not even count? There's a later part where they say they're off by six billion toys, but then they say they're off by eight billion toys. Was no one paying attention to this movie in the slightest? Dingle causes the toy factory to blow up which creates a wave freezing Santa who for some reason is making a "Home Alone" face. He relocates to Fiji and finds this woman who wants him for his money. She serves no purpose in this whatsoever. Santa returns and challenges Dingle again. He cheats again and gets disqualified again. What'd they even do this? They should have known the exact thing would happen before. Oh, and there's this magic orb that this one elf named Lex uses. It turns out he actually had the magic in him the whole time and didn't need the orb! Then how is Dingle able to use the orb? It was proved the magic came from Lex, not the orb. Oh, and Dingle's girlfriend is defeated by feeding her strudel. Yes, seriously. They were somehow able to make billions of toys in only a few minutes at the end. Either that, or they did it with Dingle's help which is also dumb considering he's supposed to be the villain.This is one of the worst Christmas movies, worst animated movies, and worst video game movies of all time. I haven't even mentioned how the CGI is horrendous. Every character looks like a melting marshmallow and the CGI looks like it was made in 1994. When you see the characters close up, they come off as even scarier. Okay, I guess this isn't as bad as "Santa And The Ice Cream Bunny", but it's close. I am so glad I'm here to warn people of the films of any kind you should avoid. Dang, I wrote a lot. So many online critics have reviewed it and it's easy to see why. Half a star

*spoiler alert* Because this whole movie simply fails at being a movie, a Christmas special, and has terrible ideas. They could have made a bible based movie about how Jesus became Santa Claus in secret. Or just tell the true tale or something. Also, it's elf bowling we are talking about... Did a flash game from the mid-to-late nineties call for a movie? How many flash games deserve a movie adaptation? And if so, why this one? And if this one, for some reason... How did they even get to the conclusion? I do not understand some movies.. Really I don't. This is like Kis Vuk and Food Fight at once, for Christmas. And worse, a poorly primitive game's adaptation. Two hours too long without any worth watching it. And I just don't know how to say how bad this thing is. Yes, Christmas is a celebration hard to make good movies for, and I swear I rarely see a Christmas special that does. Making Santa Claus a pirate, giving him a brother who cheats and commits crimes for 400 year straight, and still nobody even considers it when letting him challenge S.C. twice. Illogical Story again. And the visuals could be way better too. When this thing came out? 2007 was the year when Ratatouille came out, and that was visually appealing, with a story that was actually made for human consumption. I don't think the Easter Island idea was serious too. And the magic orb... don't get me starting on it...In short: No!

"Elf Bowling" is probably one of the worst Christmas specials ever made. It lacks the charm it is supposed to have, the animation is terrible, and it is not funny at all. All this added to the fact that it was post-produced to tie in to a popular downloadable video game.In fact, all bowling elements of the film made no sense to me. Sure, the video game is fun. I know because I've played it. However, how can you have Santa use elves as bowling pins and make both the Christmas special endearing and Santa not look like a masochist? This movie's answer to that question is apparently by making the elves actually LIKE being knocked down by a heavy bowling ball. As long as Santa is rolling that ball, it's a compliment, I guess.The way you can tell that "Elf Bowling" and all bowling elements were added to the film at the last minute is just by looking at the title: "Elf Bowling: The Movie- The Great North Pole Elf Strike". If you take anything related to bowling out of this movie, you still get a story that's predictable, and characters whose actions fly in the face of logic. Adding bowling to the plot is just clearly contrived.Apparently, in one of the stupidest Santa origin stories ever, Santa Claus (voiced by Joe Alaskey, who also does the voice for Grandpa Lou in TV's "Rugrats") starts out as a pirate (yes, a pirate!) whose fellow shipmates make it their duty to steal toys from orphans. When Santa has a falling out with his brother, Dingle Kringle (voiced by Tom Kenny, the voice of Spongebob Squarepants), they end up both accidentally walking off the plank. Because they happen to fall off the ship in the North Pole, they end up frozen and floating off to a land inhabited by toy-making elves.While the brothers initially plan to steal the toys the elves made, Santa warms up to the elves. Dingle, however, does not. Santa goes on to take over the workshop, while Dingle, in plain sight of Santa, wants to take over the toy making operation. First he wants to keep the toys for himself. Later, he wants to deliver the toys to all the children in the world with invoices attached so he can profit. INVOICES! As if kids would actually pay them.Do you see any room for bowling in this story? Somehow, they manage to wedge it in, and it sticks out like a sore thumb. Also, Dingle, being the bad guy, cheats in the first game, then is caught by the elves. They have a rematch, and Dingle cheats again, unbeknownst to those same elves. Talk about "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me"! For plot convenience's sake, the elves never seem to comprehend Dingle's evil schemes, even when he flies them to Fiji. The elves are not supposed to be stupid, but their lines like "What the cranberry sauce are you doing?" make you wonder.Despite the veteran, talented voice actors they recruited for this special, this is just a very cheap way to promote a video game that did not need this movie to promote it. It had already been downloaded 100 million times (literally) before this movie came out.Everything about this movie felt cheap: the writing, the animation, and even the sole black elf who spoke intelligence-insulting jive talk. I did not enjoy it, and I doubt kids will either. However, it may be best used as an actual bowling pin so you can through a bowling ball at it.

So you think you know the real story behind Santa Claus? So starts "Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike" and it takes you on a laugh filled journey from pirate filled oceans to the North Pole to Fiji. There are several toe tapping musical numbers along the way including Wrapplestiltskin rapping and Dingle, the evil brother, crooning. Oh and let's not forget the "Elf Bowling". I'm not familiar with the video game but it sure is funny seeing how the game is fit into the film. The elves signature reaction of joy cracked me up. First rate writing, brilliant voice work by Joe Alaskey and Tom Kenney (of Spongebob fame), and superb animation will make this a holiday treat that everyone will enjoy.