Smurfs Review: It’s Smurfing Okay


“Rihanna is Smurfette” bellow the posters and trailers for the new Smurfs movie. As it turns out, what you see is what you get from Hollywood’s most recent attempt at transforming the diminutive blue forest-dwellers into big-screen stars: The “Umbrella” singer and Fenty mastermind does, indeed, voice the one and only female Smurf, following in the footsteps of fellow pop stars Katy Perry and Demi Lovato. She even sings on occasion – a combination of in-world musical numbers, new toe-tappers on the soundtrack, and one of her own club classics – making Smurfs the closest thing to a new Rihanna album since 2016. The rest is secondary, and assuming your local multiplex has air conditioning, Paramount Animation’s offer to keep your preschooler occupied for 90 minutes makes for an unobjectionable escape from the sweltering heat.

Despite a half-century history dating all the way back to their origins in the comics of Belgian writer and artist Peyo, The Smurfs have never really had a distinct identity – at least, not one that’s stuck in peoples’ minds the way current-day family-movie critters like the Minions have. If you have any notion of what or who the Smurfs are, it was probably formed by Hanna-Barbera’s long-running Saturday-morning cartoon: Names determined by a defining trait (Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf) or occupation (Baker Smurf, Doctor Smurf), a knack for infectious melodies, and a tendency to use the word “Smurf” as all manner of nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (“Smurf that!”). The new movie approaches this indistinctness head on, focusing its hybrid of animation and live-action on No Name Smurf (James Corden), whose quest to find his place in the Smurfs’ tiny village makes up the movie’s first act, and plays out with the broad delivery of kids’ TV (think Dora the Explorer).

But it isn’t long before Smurfs takes on an almost stream-of-consciousness bent. Without warning, it introduces a D&D-like fantasy lore about ancient magic, books of spells, and noble protectors, which the Smurfs get roped into when one of their own is kidnapped by an old adversary: the evil wizard Razamell, the brother of long-time Smurf nemesis Gargamel (both voiced by JP Karliak). In order to track down their missing brethren, the Smurfs begin teleporting from place to place – fantastical animated realms as well as real-world cities like Paris and Berlin – by way of portals opened up by gramophones and musical instruments. You’d think the talents of Rihanna and the many Indian artists on the soundtrack (and Corden’s attempts at belting) would come in handy here, but the rules are usually random, and can be circumvented with some good old fashioned spell-casting. You see, No Name is considering taking up the title of Magic Smurf, and the sudden appearance of these abilities turns Smurfs into a kind of superhero coming-of-age tale, as he tries to wield his powers responsibly.

At the same time, No Name and his fellow Smurfs learn about the secret history of their kindly leader, Papa Smurf (John Goodman), and his estranged brothers who live in the human world. These long lost uncles go by mundane monikers like Ken (Nick Offerman) and Ron (Kurt Russell), which calls into question everything we know about Smurf naming conventions (and, by extension, No Name’s whole arc). Of course, it’s a waste of time to poke logic holes in a movie meant for the daycare set – though this one also features plenty of jokes to keep adults entertained, between extended references to Zoom calls and, inexplicably, recurring gags about advanced mathematics. Interspersed with these are occasional Broadway-style numbers where Smurfette convinces No Name to believe in himself (albeit after expressing the same sentiment more succinctly in dialogue). None of the songs are particularly bad, though it’ll come as a relief to parents that their kids will be unlikely to recall them in the coming weeks.

Even at a scant 90 minutes, Smurfs overstays its welcome a tad, if only because it does little to maintain the attention of its youngest viewers the longer it goes on. It can be eye-popping at times; the 2D details like action lines rendered in a 3D world are delightful to look at. However, the story zigs and zags, and slows down before accelerating at breakneck speed, and swerves in too many directions for a 3-year-old to count. The dialogue can also be hard to catch. Voice actors on children’s shows over-enunciate for a reason, but this movie’s celebrity cast – a stunt that Hollywood really needs to kill, because screen and voice acting are different skillsets! – speaks with rapid-fire naturalism, as though mumbling their way through a guest appearance on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

There are enough colors and sparkles to keep kids occupied for a time, though it’s just as easy to see them getting restless (as was the case at my press screening) when Smurfs begins repeating itself and relying too heavily on laughs from the grown-ups in the room. No Name’s saga is really a fable worthy of a single TV episode. However, with its numerous segues – each built from flashes of imaginative sparks, translated haphazardly to the screen – and upbeat soundtrack, you could do a whole lot worse for your kid.


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