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

Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike, what an absolute pile of rubbish this is. Featuring a story that is insultingly bad, awful animation, terrible voice acting, and has the audacity to go on for 80 bloody minutes.

Yet, we’re so short on festive movies that share any connection with video games, we felt compelled to watch this and review it.

So, what’s the video game Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike is based on? It’s only 1998’s Elf Bowling, who most of a certain age will remember coming as a .EXE file attached to an email, prompting a ton of people to think they had a virus sent to them. Oh, how times have changed. Those slightly younger probably played it on Adobe Flash.

Whereas the rest are looking blankly at the screen thinking – wait, it’s a bowling game where you knock down elf-pins as Santa? How does that translate into a movie?

The answer is that it doesn’t. It simply doesn’t, and the proof is this movie.

Do you think you know the story of Santa Claus? Well, you’re wrong as a long time ago he was a pirate captain, voiced by Joe Alaskey. He sailed the seas with his half-brother Dingle, voiced by Tom Kenny, and they stole toys from the rich and sold them to orphanages around the world.

To pass the time on the ship, Santa and Dingle would play bowling with the crew, but work together to ensure the former always wins. That is until they are caught and thrown overboard by the crew. The pair ended up frozen in ice, floating to the North Pole, where they were found by the elves that live there.

They are unfrozen from the ice, and one particular elf mistakes Santa for the legendary ‘Whitebeard’ who is prophesied to led the elves and help them deliver toys to all the kids on Christmas. While initially unappealing, Santa plays along and even creates the game of Elf Bowling, and as the centuries pass, he grows to love his role.

However, Dingle proves to be a problem, and having had enough of his lazy ways, Santa kicks him out.

Furious at the betrayal, Dingle sets about taking Santa’s place, kidnapping the elves and setting up shop in Fiji, of all places. Can Santa save Christmas by winning the most important game of Elf Blowing he may ever play?

It is a nonsensical as it sounds, and is somehow dragged out to a length that is downright criminal. Not only is it idiotic, it is beyond boring, and as good as a lot of these voice actors are, they’re not putting in any effort here. Can you blame them? Especially when it’s to animation this cheap and ugly looking.

Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike isn’t meant for adults, but kids aren’t going to enjoy this. It’s convoluted and much to dull to hold anyone’s attention for more than a few minutes. Spend 80 minutes staring at the wall, it is marginally more interesting than watching this rubbish.

Hilariously, it even advertises a sequel at the end. One that would be called ‘Elf Bowling 2: The Great Halloween Pumpkin Heist. Happily, it never happened. Now, if only the memory of this film could be erased.