SHOULD HAVE A LONG 'ELF' LIFE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

WILL FERRELL spreads the spirit in ``Elf.'' And if it wasn't for the star's looney comic commitment, many of the laughs in this formulaic Christmas confection would be about as funny as coal in your stocking.

Ferrell's natural ability to play the earnest, holy fool man-child, coupled with the immense slapstick potential of this 6-foot-plus oaf having been raised to act like one of Santa's teensy elves, makes for a central figure who is always fun. With his green jacket, golden tights and pointy shoes, Ferrell is certainly dressed for clown success. But it's his remarkably open face - sincere, naive and always anxious for the next hope of happiness - that makes the movie genuinely playful and touching.

Ferrell is Buddy, who as an orphaned baby crawled into Santa's (a mildly gruff Edward Asner) sack one Christmas Eve and was not discovered until back at the North Pole. Not wanting to condemn the tyke to parentlessness, Santa turned him over to an unmarried workshop tinkerer (Bob Newhart, just mildly there), who raised him as his own son.

Some 30 years later, though, things aren't working out. Buddy towers over all of his 2-foot peers (presented most winsomely by production designer Rusty Smith in a deceptively simple, old-fashioned forced perspective manner rather than with an overabundance of CGI assists). His big, clumsy human hands can't make toys as fast as the workshop requires. Humiliatingly, he's transferred to product testing, where the ``special'' elves work.

Anyway, they finally have to break the nonglandular truth to Buddy. He also learns that the man who unknowingly fathered him lives in New York City. So, he determines to head south and connect with his real roots.

Buddy is even more out of place in Manhattan than he was at the Pole. His dad, Walter (a nicely skeptical James Caan), proves to be a workaholic and mercenary children's book publisher who's earned his place on Santa's naughty list. Walter naturally thinks that the nut in the elf suit is just, well, some nut in an elf suit.

The stage is set for Buddy to make Walter a better husband and father (Mary Steenburgen is the understanding wife/stepmom; Daniel Tay the resentful, 10-year-old half-brother who's won over by Buddy's weapon-of-mass-snowball-destruction capabilities).

Oh, and Buddy saves Christmas, too, the spirit of which is apparently in jeopardy in these troubled times of ours.

At least that's what director Jon Favreau, the actor and writer of the snarky ``Swingers,'' would have us believe. How well that warming sentiment intermingles with the anarchic lunacy of David Berenbaum's screenplay is probably a matter of individual viewer chemistry.

But I'll happily admit that I much preferred the crazy bits. There's Buddy feverishly redecorating Gimbels' toy department displays, then ruining it all by self-righteously attacking the ``Santa Imposter!'' in front of traumatized kids. Or, Buddy falling, in a sissy-boy stalker manner, for Zooey Deschanel's tender tough cookie. Then there's ``The Station Agent's'' Peter Dinklage as a ruthless, prima donna kiddie-lit genius.

But it must be said that Favreau's relatively low-key approach - compared to the shreiky contempo style of ``The Santa Clause'' movies, anyway - makes even the warmed-over warmheartedness go down like edible oatmeal. Ferrell's manic mugging gives ``Elf'' its essential energy, but the laid-back quality of just about every other element (even the animated bits pleasantly recall herky-jerky TV holiday specials of the 1970s) helps mute the crassness that's part of the parcel these commercial Christmas endeavors wrap as presents.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

bob.strauss(at)dailynews.com

ELF - Three stars

(PG: minor violence)

Starring: Will Ferrell, James Caan, Zooey Deschanel, Mary Steenburgen, Edward Asner, Bob Newhart, Daniel Tay, Peter Dinklage.

Director: Jon Favreau.

Running time: 1 hr. 30 min.

Playing: Wide release.

In a nutshell: Likably low-tech Christmas comedy about a man raised as an elf can't decide if it wants to be subversive or heartwarming, and winds up charming.

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Will Ferrell, starring as a human raised (and educated) as one of Santa's helpers, sets out on a journey to find his birth parents in ``Elf,'' directed by Jon Favreau.