Elf Bowling the Movie: The Great North Pole Elf Strike

This movie is like a chick flick except instead of smoking babes, dude, it's a munchkin and fat guy. *cries*

Seriously, this movie is garbage. Don't watch it

Its a good in joke between your friends. Oh, and I guess don't ever ever do anything remotely similar to this.

There can be only 1 elf bowling movie.

I never heard of the elf bowling games until like last year, and I came from the 90s. The game clearly looks ridiculous and like nothing really happens, but it also looked kind of funny. Not technically something that would be made into a kids movie though...

I found it on Amazon Prime Video with it's glorious 1.7 glory rating, but I figured I'd check it out...not once but twice. Yes TWICE!!! The movie was so boring that I couldn't even stay awake during its hour and a half long duration. The plot is stupid (to be honest, I still never knew what the damn plot was), the pacing is annoyingly slow, and none of the characters are likeable. Not only are the characters unlikable and unfunny, but their stupidity gives me a HORRENDOUS headache. The villian of the movie, Dinkle, had been a sly fox for 1400 years, and when random stuff happens, NO ONE FOR SOME REASON THINKS "OH MAYBE IT'S DINKLE AGAIN!!" But that would make too much sense and the movie can't make sense because then it will be too short, AND WE CAN'T HAVE OUR MOVIE BE SHORT!!

This is a damn Christmas movie based on a deadass video game, but I literally forgot about the so called "elf bowling" plotline...(sigh). The animation is tolerable and not too insulting despite the characters looking like creepy early CGI models...wait what year this came out again? Meh I don't care. The voice acting is not terrible, but it IS annoying. Every character, except maybe Lex (the magic ball elf), sounds incredibly annoying. That's more of my personal nitpick because I've heard less annoying voices in Spongebob Squarepants...(I made the reference because Tom Kenny plays Dinkle...).

This is a kid's movie sure, but this is not something I would recommend parents to show their kids. Not only is the movie terrible, but it's also an insult to children's intelligence and it's very boring. I personally think this was made for money, because the creators did not care. I'd taken creepy stop-motion Christmas specials before this anyday.

Oh there's sex jokes somewhere in there too...

"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.

Apparently, this was based on a free, obscure Flash game created in 1998 and for some reason, the creators thought it had potential for a movie almost ten years later. They couldn't have been more wrong, because the result was one of the worst computer-animated Christmas movies of all time.

Here's the story: Pirate siblings, Santa (Joe Alaskey) and Dingle (Tom Kenny), make a living stealing and selling toys aboard their ship. Soon, though, they are mutinied and thrown overboard. After winding up at the North Pole, the brothers plan to steal and sell all the toys the elves there have made. Eventually though, Santa has a change of heart and becomes the jolly old St. Nick we know and love, while Dingle unsurprisingly seeks to overthrow his brother and take over Christmas. So now, the two siblings compete in an Elf bowling match, the winner which will be the head of the holidays.

Admittingly, on paper, the plot sounded interesting and had potential. The idea of Santa Claus starting off as a bad guy, then gradually learning the importance of giving and bringing joy to the world until he becomes the figure of Christmas and might have worked if handled properly. But instead, the creators ruined it all when they chose to mix it with "Elf Bowling". And ironically, there isn't even that much bowling involved in the film. It's just a plot device to invoke the final showdown between Santa and Dingle.

Granted, I've seen worse animation in "Sir Billi" and "Foodfight!", both released later in 2012, but it still sucked here and looked about ten years out of date. The character models all had shoddy and ugly designs, poorly textured faces that looked as though their skin was made of wax, and their movements were jerky and erratic. The Elves looked the worst with their small beady eyes, oversized cheekbones, and huge pointy noses; they reminded me of Tingle from the Legend of Zelda.

The dialogue is boring and disgusting, with lines like: "Who pooped in the peanut butter?". And there's way too much innuendo for kids to be watching this, like: "Brother, you keep your hot strudel in your pants." Plus, despite a notable voice cast being involved, all the voice acting and singing was annoying. I guess they spent most of the budget hiring Tom Kenny to lend his voice, but all we hear is him using a slightly altered Patchy the Pirate voice for Dingle.

I can't believe it cost $6.5 million to make this, because in the end, this was just a humorless, poorly made, 80-minute-long mess based on a flash game long forgotten. It had no redeeming qualities and no Christmas charm or spirit to speak of. Except for "The Christmas Light" and "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa", this was the crappiest computer animated Christmas movie I've ever seen, and I'm irritated that I wasted my time watching it, even just to review it as a warning for others.