Movie Review: ‘Smurfs’ has Rihanna but not much else
Justin Timberlake had Trolls Rihanna has Smurfs Now we patiently await a Gummi Bears with the Biebs But first we have Smurfs which like Trolls gets as much mileage as it can from its pop singer-voice actor Rihanna voices Smurfette and supplies a new song giving a half-hearted injection of star power to an otherwise uninspired modestly scaled kiddo-friendly cartoon feature Smurfs directed by Chris Miller Puss in Boots Shrek the Third cribs heavily from the Trolls playbook Both feature brightly colored little forest creatures that like a good tune In the opening of Smurfs Papa Smurf John Goodman is DJing for a dancing Smurf Village As the several Smurfs gyrate next to mushroom houses you might find yourself wondering how we got here And what exactly is a Smurf anyway It s been nearly years since Belgian comic artist Peyo created Les Schtroumpfs though the bulk of those still familiar with the little blue fellas remember them from the s Hanna-Barbera cartoons The Smurfs have never really transcended their Saturday morning cartoon origins Neither a pair of live-action hybrid movies in the early s or a animated release have done much more than keep us vaguely aware of what a Phrygian cap is And Smurfs is unlikely to change that The best thing that can be commented for the latest attempt to reboot the blue Belgian beings is that it maintains the light feel of a morning cartoon Even with a brief SpongeBob SquarePants short running ahead of it Smurfs seemingly designed to be the least ambitious of all manageable parent-child outings passes in about minutes The pressing issue in Miller s film is that one Smurf No Name Smurf James Corden lacks a defining feature There are so a multitude of other labels already taken that all that s left for him are Clog Making Smurf and Shark Taming Smurf and neither of those is promising either When No Name Smurf suddenly grows magical powers he gets a boost in confidence but inadvertently sets off a dangerous chain reaction The burst of magic reveals the location of Smurf Village and a long-hidden magical book that if reunited with three others confers world domination Fun fact This is also what happens if you reunify all first editions of James Joyce s Ulysses The outburst brings the attention of the evil wizard Razamel brother of Gargamel Both are excellently voiced by JP Karliak And the Smurfs are cast into a chase through dimensions to rescue the kidnapped Papa Smurf and prevent Razamel from seizing the fourth book The trip takes them through Paris Munich Australia and briefly Claymation The zaniness is often forced There are also Koosh ball-like creatures named Snooter Poots with a leader named Mama Poot Natasha Lyonne And if you were ever hoping to hear Rihanna sing as a Smurf from the seat of a kangaroo pouch your movie has conclusively arrived But any expectations of something more hastily dissipate despite the fact that Smurfs was scripted by Pam Brady the screenwriter of Hot Rod and co-writer of Company America World Police Largest part of the attempts at adult-winking gags are hackneyed jokes about Zoom podcasting spam filters and LinkedIn You can almost feel IP-rights pressures animating the entire enterprise See there are other Smurf names out there What about Corporate Mandate Smurf Smurfs a Paramount Pictures release is rated PG by the Motion Picture Association for action language and chosen rude humor Running time minutes One and a half stars out of four Source
