Let me start this review by saying that i am not familiar with the Will Ferrell movie, so I cannot say which is better and which is worse. However, I did not really like this 45 minute special from last Christmas. The voice cast has some pretty big names, including multiple Emmy Award winner Jim Parsons as the lead character. He unites with his former "Big Bang Theory" co star Kate Micucci. The whole premise is about an elf getting his dad off the naughty list. As you probably already guessed from the title, there are quite a few musical numbers in here, but none of these really wowed me. The last one sung by the female main character was solid, the rest fairly forgettable.
All in all, this movie had no less than a total of 6 pretty experienced writers and directors and taking this into account it is a fairly disappointing result. The animation isn't great either. There are parts of it which are downright bad, like the mouth of the villain. The topics such as the elf falling in love or relationship with his dad offered room for nice emotion, but it fell short in this area too. And the ending with all the people from the naughty list suddenly showing up was strange too. Fairly forgettable Christmas special here, really only for small children.
All in all, this movie had no less than a total of 6 pretty experienced writers and directors and taking this into account it is a fairly disappointing result. The animation isn't great either. There are parts of it which are downright bad, like the mouth of the villain. The topics such as the elf falling in love or relationship with his dad offered room for nice emotion, but it fell short in this area too. And the ending with all the people from the naughty list suddenly showing up was strange too. Fairly forgettable Christmas special here, really only for small children.