Review: Hollywood, please let the Smurfs die

I don't understand Hollywood's obsession with the Smurfs. I watched them as a kid. They were cute. They have a long history. At this point, though, they're not relevant. Kids don't clamor for them. Nostalgia for them is borderline nonexistent. Who keeps deciding these movies need to be made? When will it end? Maybe here.

Weirdly, leading up to this newest Smurfs movie, simply titled Smurfs, I realized that I've actually avoided all of the little blue dudes' other cinematic outings. Which is surprising, because I watch so much animation (including my share of bad animation), and I also watch a lot of movies in general. But I guess that shows my general disinterest in the franchise. I couldn't even be bothered to scoot on over to a theater, or to catch up with them on streaming in the years since. So here we are, my first Smurfs outing since childhood (not counting my time playing The Smurfs: Dreams game on Switch, which is better than it ought to be).

My un-Smurf-iness is perhaps best exemplified by my surprise when Smurfette's backstory is mentioned in this movie. This girl was molded out of clay by the evil wizard Gargamel as a weapon to use against the Smurfs (who all seem to be male other than her?). Smurfs are horny I guess? Even though it seems more likely that they would've all just developed a predilection for homosexuality in the absence of women. Now that there's one woman in town, what? They all compete for her? Participate in some big polyamorous affair? I have endless questions, ones that I don't think will be answered anytime soon, or ever.

Smurfs are defined by one thing. Smurfette is a girl. Papa is old. Hefty is strong. Brainy is smart. Sound Effect Smurf makes sound effects. On and on it goes. So all of these characters are basically one-joke ponies. Sometimes those jokes are pretty good (Sound Effect fares well throughout the film, comically speaking). Others are basically nothing. Oddly, No Name Smurf is not nothing. He's the one with the most personality, because he wants to figure out what his "thing" is, so he's always trying out new things. He's a likable little dude, undone a bit by the face that he's voiced by James Corden, who despite being James Corden does tend to fare pretty well in my eyes in supporting roles (even in Cats!).

God, I just like don't even want to write about this movie. It's such a fun-suck.

Okay.

The big thing that happens in this movie is that Papa Smurf gets kidnapped by Gargamel's brother Razamel, who's an even more evil wizard. Razamel wants Papa to reveal the whereabouts of a long-lost magic book that will grant him entry into an elite league of evil wizards. So a bunch of the other Smurfs set off to rescue Papa, venturing into the real world and making some friends along the way. They sing some songs, they escape danger, they save the day. It's the most boring movie of all time.

I tend to hate when animated movies plop their characters into live-action environments. Sometimes, it feels like they want to have live-action footage to put in the trailer, because they're afraid animation won't sell. Or that it adds something exciting and fresh to the movie. That's usually not the case, although there are animated movies that use live-action scenes well (like The Green Dinosaur, as a recent example). Here, I have to imagine it was a purely financial decision: cheaper to plop the characters in these environments for a bit rather than having to animate everything for the whole movie. Because as the Smurfs traipse through Paris, the Australian Outback, and Germany, almost nothing of note happens. These scenes aren't visually interesting or particularly exciting. It feels like the Smurfs are invisible to humans, so they just sneak through various places without any real effort. It's so lame.

It's a bummer, too, because I liked the film's animation pretty well. It's not the most polished-looking thing you've ever seen, but there are nice details in the CGI that have a more hand-drawn look, notably how the characters' eyes look, as well as on certain backgrounds and costumes. Everything is pretty colorful and bright (obviously), and there's a fun multi-verse hopping bit at the end that brings in some other animation styles like claymation and anime that was fun. It makes the live-action crutch all the more frustrating.

And this movie doesn't need any extra baggage weighing it down! On top of the rote plot, the tired IP, and the simplistic humor, there's also some weird casting decisions at play here. The movie's main selling point in its marketing has been that Rihanna plays Smurfette. I get it, we all miss Rihanna. That album is never coming. But her voice and this character just don't go well together. I wish they had done something to Smurfette to make it work better, but it felt really mismatched. Same goes for Natasha Lyonne as this little poof-ball thing where I was like...this doesn't work. Celebrity casting often works out fine, and other actors here fare quite well (like John Goodman as Papa and Dan Levy as Razamel's assistant), but this cast was a definite mixed bag.

Ultimately, I wondered if this movie was just made to hopefully sell some merchandise. Maybe a few kids will want Smurf dolls, or stuffed animals of those little poof-balls. Maybe the soundtrack will move a few copies because Rihanna's fans are starving. I don't know. But Smurfs feels like the worst movie of 2005, complete with its dance party finale. Please, let's just give up on these little blue things.