Star Cast: Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman, JP Karliak, and Dan Levy.
Director: Chris Miller
What’s Good: Some of the animation bits in the Smurf world are quite fun.
What’s Bad: The plot, the characters, and the overall humor will be a miss for most people.
Loo Break: There are several moments to take a break, even if the film is quite short.
Watch or Not?: This is pass. There are better offerings out there, including Transformers One, which comes from Paramount Animation itself.
Language: English (with subtitles).
Available On: Theaters
Runtime: 92 Minutes
User Rating:
Smurfs Movie Review: Script Analysis
Who is this movie for? Smurfs was once a very lovable franchise, but that was a long time ago. Since then Hollywood has been trying to revive the franchise on the big screen and every single attempt at it feels like a waste of time and resources, as the members of the audience who grew up with the franchise have completely disconnected from it, and kids nowadays have other franchises to focus on, and so, it is expected that this film will not do very well at the box-office, as it has no real audience.
This sense of living in a sort of limbo is also felt in the writing, which affects both plot and character development. The film as a rescue premise, which is nothing new for the franchise, and actually it might be a bit played out by now, but because the characters that we need to follow throughout the adventure are never developed in any meaningful way it is hard to connect with the story, and so, you end up not caring about what is happening on the screen, as there are no stakes whatsoever.
As films go, everything is pretty standard from moment to moment, and the film even tries to reach a sort of moral message, but it all falls rather flat, mainly because of the humor. There is nothing vulgar or anything like that in the film, but the writing feels rather cringy, as the film tries to appear cool, but it isn’t, and it seems oblivious to it, which makes it worse, as there is not a hint of self-awareness in the writing. There will be people for whom the comedy will really hit, but I don’t expect to be the majority of the audience.
Smurfs Movie Review: Star Performance
Smurfs chooses to distance itself from the structure of the original films, which mixed live-action and CGI characters, in the way that Sonic and the Alvin film do. Here, we focus only on the Smurfs, and so the performances are mainly voiced, which works great for what the film is trying to do, even if it is not entirely successful at it. especially when it comes to the role of Rihanna, who plays Smurfette, basically the main character.
Rihanna, who also produces the film, gives herself the role of the protagonist, and while she tries her best, that is not enough, and so her voice feels quite monotone and boring. The film also has the unfortunate event of having James Corden in its cast as well, and at this point, Corden could be basically considered poison for any movie. Dan Levy fares better, but his role is too small and feels like an afterthought.