Review of Smurfs: The Lost Village (2017) by Applejames — 18 Jan 2018

Smurfs: the Lost Village is a rather competent film that strays away from the 2 god awful CGI/Live Action Cash Grab Films known as "The Smurfs" and "The Smurfs 2".

While I didn't exactly grow up with the age demographic of most Smurfs Fans, I do remember watching a lot of the episodes on Boomerang as a kid, and all I can say is The Lost Village is an almost proper reboot/revisit to the Original Animated Smurfs cartoon. The Lost Village, unlike the blatant cash grab films is set in the same world as the original, with many of the same concepts kept untouched, or very slightly but elegantly altered. The only gripe I'd have is that the lore of this film somewhat throws out season 5 of the Smurfs, for example it's known that Smurfette isn't actually a real Smurf in both the show and film, but the show there is really only one actual Female Smurf (Nanny Smurf) and 2 Magic Made Smurfs (Smurfette & Sassette) However in the CGI Movie we have a whole Tribe of natural Female Smurfs when Smurfette was thought to be the only one even if she was made with magic.

Essentially The Lost Village stays true to the original show but only if you exclude season 5 and after. But what they do with excluding season 5 is a really neat concept all on it's own. If you know just a bit about the Smurfs then the film comes across as an expansion of the original show, but if you are pretty well educated about Smurf Lore then this comes off as a different Universe entirely that can still spark that bit of wonder.

The film also has plenty of interesting visuals and quality animation, but tends to lack in a lot of the writing and world. There tends to be a lot of obvious puns that are based off of the one dimensional smurfs, granted there isn't really a whole lot else you can do with characters that are intentionally designed to be 1 Dimensional, All Smurfs are personified by one single aspect, this makes it easy to write easy jokes, but it doesn't allow much character building. The only character who actually changes, or at least comes to terms with what she is is Smurfette, and even then she has no clue, there isn't an exact aspect to Smurfette's personality, but with her being the main character, character development doesn't seem to be that big of a deal in the film.

Now I've seen some reviews claim that the film is using Feminist Propaganda, and I can't really agree here, I understand that there's a focus on powerful female characters, but it doesn't feel overly forced, it really fits in with that universe expansion, and really it rather makes sense for the Female Smurfs to be a force to reckon with given the setting of their village, the film builds up that the Forbidding Forest is a dangerous place, then throughout the film our protagonist Smurfs do end up having a difficult time in this unknown land. It wouldn't make any sense if the Female Smurfs were peacefully living pleasurable lives in this harsh environment, they fit in with the harsh environment by living a harsh lifestyle. Overall I think Smurfs: the Lost Village is an alright and competent revisit to the Smurfs, but could use some fixing up. And if Sony is ever going to reboot any other old classics, I hope this is how they do it, instead of cash grab crap like the 2 CGI/Live Action Films.