Review of The Smurfs (2011) by Adam F — 27 Feb 2013

"The Smurfs" has some good laughs and Hank Azaria is genuinely entertaining, but it never event attempts to be a smart movie and settles for entertaining only children. The movie also has one gigantic flaw: It abandons the colourful "Smurf Village" that we see at the very beginning of the film and most of the Smurf cast by throwing a handful of them in present-day New York City.

Why? Well apparently to show us advertisements for: Blue Man Group, Blu-Ray, West Side Story, M&Ms, Madam Alexander, Guitar Hero and endless more. Once in this location, the film also feels the need to introduce a human protagonist for us to follow so the Smurfs are reduced to side characters who bumble around at the wonders of modern technology in your typical "fish-out-of-water" story.

The movie uses old jokes or jokes that are just cringe inducing (like a scene where "Gutsy Smurf" yells "Freedom!" parodying "Braveheart"... as if children would have seen that movie or a scene where "Azrael" the cat falls on "Gargamel's" head and the man exclaims "Oh I didn't know you were a boy!" which is just a stupid joke).

The movie is juvenile and will only appeal to children, which is unfortunate because the source material is far more clever than this. It's technically harmless, but there are so many other films that can be enjoyed as a family or that will make you laugh harder than this that it's hard to recommend it.

(2-D version on Blu-ray, April 13, 2012).