As a connoisseur of Hanna Barbera cartoons, I had high hopes for The Smurfs. Extensive advertising meant the studio does also. Since the biggest fans of the cartoon have now reached their twenties, it’s a fairly unknown commodity. The movie however acts as if everyone knows the ins and outs of “Smurf-dom.” The Smurfs are small blue creatures that live in an enchanted forest with essentially only one enemy, the evil wizard Gargamel, played by Hank Azaria. Then during one encounter with the dimwit, a small group of Smurfs get sucked through a portal leading them to New York City.
The plot is has a disjointed feel since a number of the scenes serve no purpose other than absent minded entertainment. Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays play the humans who look after the Smurfs, but their personal storylines are not thought out very well. Harris works in marketing for a cosmetics company, which is pretty random considering half the audience still wants to be a firefighter or an astronaut. And as tough as it is for real actors to interact with CGI characters, it’s strange the script repeatedly has the people hugging them and revealing how fake an exchange it is? It doesn’t make sense. In terms of some kind of theme or lesson, a few nice thoughts are mentioned, but I think what we’re supposed to take away from the film is that abusing cats is funny and using “smurf” as a verb can make any sentence seem like a sexual innuendo. What concepts!
In the middle of the film there are a few jokes that are actually funny. I couldn’t tell you what they are, they’re not very memorable, but I did laugh. Now humor is obviously a matter of opinion, but most of the movie doesn’t even have jokes. Azaria’s ridiculous Gargamel performance is a lot of fun though. Kids won’t realize how much he looks like the cartoon character, but his general demeanor throughout is worth a few chuckles. There are even moments where I want the villain to win and shut up the annoying Smurfs. What happened to the good live action Hanna Barbera movies like The Flintstones with John Goodman and Rosie O’Donnell? …That wasn’t very good either, was it? Scooby Doo? Okay, I give up. (6.2 out of 10)
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