Film Reviews

The Smurfs

• Rating:
• Director: Raja Gosnell
• Starring: Anton Yelchin
• Details: US/102mins G

Continuing the current Hollywood trend of taking a familiar sounding TV show from yesteryear and turning into a CGI/live action hybrid, The Smurfs makes for utterly inane watching and will struggle to moderately amuse anyone old enough to remember the original. Lines of dialogue are replaced with variations of the word "smurf," which is kind of cute the first time, and then self-harm-annoying after a while.
The Smurfs, small blue humanoid type creatures that make The Care Bears look like henchmen from The Sopranos, are magically transported to modern day Manhattan when they slip into a vortex by a cave near their home. Papa Smurf's arch nemesis, and general devious sort Gargamel has a plan, involving gold, that he needs The Smurfs to execute. Luckily, the diminutive blue midgets meet caring - if freaked out couple - Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays, who help them on their adventure.
Staggeringly, this film had a production cost of $110 million, which is completely ridiculous when you see the final product. The assumption is that the money went into the rendering of the actual titular characters, which is hardly groundbreaking. Harris does his best as the main human on show but is merely set dressing to his computer generated co-stars. Azaria is unrecognisable as Gargamel, but does his usual stellar job inhabiting an eccentric villain.
It does have a bash at irony, and an attempt at moderate self-awareness, but it all feels very half-hearted. It's difficult to make any kind of whimsical mainstream film nowadays without addressing how ridiculous the set-up is; while the likes of Enchanted got it spot on, The Smurfs struggles to contain its characters.
If you've seen the Alvin and The Chipmunks film, or the more recent Yogi Bear feature, you've already seen this. If only The Littlest Hobo was around and hungry this could've been much shorter.

Review by Mike Sheridan