Director: Chris Miller
Writer: Pam Brady
Stars: Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman
Synopsis: When Papa Smurf is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel and Gargamel, Smurfette leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe.
One question that has seemingly always managed to rack my brain is, “What is the appeal of the Smurfs?” Sure, maybe the whole adjective to describe what one of these blue creatures does was cute while the original cartoon ran in the ‘80s, but what is so special about these characters that they now have four feature films? The two live-action animated hybrid films The Smurfs and The Smurfs 2 are among some of the most dreadful movies made in recent years, and the fully animated Smurfs: The Lost Village is about as memorable as a piece of sandpaper. Enter Smurfs, which manages to showcase almost all the laziest and most shameless aspects of modern children’s entertainment. With bottom-of-the-barrel attempts at modern lingo in dialogue, jokes that are barely formed, and a story that manages to be simultaneously generic and convoluted as hell, Smurfs is a fascinating embarrassment to witness. Some occasional nice animation and songs save it from being the worst of the Smurf films, but that isn’t saying much.
After an exposition dump of Papa Smurf (John Goodman) narrating about how the smurfs have a magical book that they must keep away from four evil witches who need the book to complete a scheme to remove all the goodness from the universe, we meet No Name (James Corden), a smurf who’s still searching for his “thing” amongst the village and Smurfette (Rihanna), a smurf initially crafted by Gargamel to capture other smurfs. When Papa Smurf is captured by Gargamel’s brother, Razamel (both voiced by JP Karliak), it’s up to No Name and Smurfette to lead all of Smurf Village to define themselves and save their world.
From the minute it starts, the overly broad story beats within the film’s screenplay begin rearing their heads. The movie’s main message of finding worth in oneself is something that, despite its overuse in media, can be told in creative ways in younger-skewing films such as The Lego Movie, but it’s done about as plain as they come here. No Name Smurf just suddenly can do whatever the plot needs him to do in the final act, leading to his growth of becoming Magic Smurf, being glossed over, and Smurfette’s conflict of how she comes from a different space than the other Smurfs could not be more tacked onto the film’s entirety as an afterthought.
Matters aren’t helped because the universe that the Smurfs reside in could not be more poorly thought out. Once the Smurfs start their journey to find Papa in Paris, the live-action elements of the movie’s environment are wildly out of place. Why do real-life human beings never remotely notice the blue creatures that are near them? Why do animated humans and live-action humans occupy the same space? The film’s animated portions clash so badly with real life, an aspect of the filmmaking that even the early 2010s Smurf films did better.
These constant irks would matter less if the film were even remotely funny, but it misses the mark on nearly every punchline. The movie’s “jokes” are mostly a mix of replacing random words with Smurf, specific Smurfs limited to doing what word describes their character, obnoxious puns such as “What the shell?”, and a finishing touch of cringey modern lingo that comes across so desperate for relevance. There’s rarely any switch ups between these four joke variations, and this star-studded voice cast is rarely, if ever, able to bring any charisma to these lines that doesn’t just come across as nonsensical noise happening on screen.
The film’s one singular saving grace is the admittedly beautifully looked backgrounds and animation styles on display here. This film easily has the best-looking visuals of any Smurf film to date, as it uses a similar cell-shaded animated style to other recent films within the medium to its advantage. There’s even a full sequence in the film where our characters jump through different dimensions of animation styles like stop-motion and stick figure, and it’s where the movie is at its most inspired. However, there’s even a small caveat to this singular complement as the movements of cell-shaded character models can oftentimes be a bit janky and awkward to look at, but not enough for it to be a complete take away.
Smurfs may, at the very least, entertain the smallest of children, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else being enticed by what happens here. It’s a forgettable trash heap that offers nothing new, funny, or interesting to the average viewer, that isn’t executed infinitely better elsewhere. The absolutely preposterous world-building tops it all off, and it’s safe to say that this franchise couldn’t be more dead on arrival.
