THE SMURFS (2011)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
I know that a live-action film based on the Belgian-created little blue people is technically targeted at kids, but it also assumes that someone like me, who grew into a teenager during the 1980's when the little blue thingies had an animated series, is also targeted at my nostalgia. So my thoughts are that the first feature-length "Smurfs" movie is basically fun and a little shapeless but fun all the same, aimed at the kid in all of us. Nothing wrong with that.
The Smurfs are the 3-apple high Blue People who live in mushroom houses in the middle of the woods and invisible to the naked eye. There is Clumsy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Gutsy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, Chef Smurf, etc. Papa Smurf leads the clan, and there is the one anomaly in the male-dominated group, the adorable female Smurfette (voiced by Katy Perry). Thanks to evil and clumsy wizard Gargamel (played by a live, non-animated human, Hank Azaria), the Smurfs' village is under siege by the wizard and his evil, snarling cat. During their escape, the Blue Kids find themselves sucked into a vortex that lands them in New York City. Why there is a vortex that leads to the Big Apple, I do not understand but I am not looking for logic here (something similar happens in the far superior and magical film, "Enchanted").
So the Smurfs find themselves running around New York and Neil Patrick Harris's apartment (Harris plays a marketing expert), trying in vain to elude the evil Gargamel. Eventually the evil wizard kidnaps Papa Smurf and hopes to remove his "Smurf essence" (What?) with the aid of a dragon wand that will make the wizard more powerful! Right, sure.
I loved the opening sequence of "The Smurfs" so much that I had hoped it would remain there. Instead the film's four screenwriters decide to send the Blue Kids to New York, and so we get some inspired cameos from Liz Smith, Joan Rivers and Tim Gunn (the most inspired). Sofia Vergara is fun for a while though her role in this film is misguided and confused - either she is not bitchy enough or the writers forgot to make her bitchier when she threatens to fire Harris's character through a text! Neil Patrick Harris seems like he is in a daze but I did enjoy his slapstick pratfalls (though he could have used some of the wit he brings to his TV show, "How I Met Your Mother").
The Smurfs are fun to watch (the Scottish Gutsy Smurf - a new Smurf - is my favorite) and are animated through CGI technology in such a way that pays tribute to the animated series, instead of having them jump around frantically like so many other CGI animated pictures that combine live-action (cueing Mr. Garfield Kitty). The movie gets a bit tedious (Smurf this, Smurf that, only so much I can take) but there is a hint of devilish wit in the few scenes between Gargamel and Sofia Vergara. As I said before, there is something for the kids and something for the adults.
The Smurfs are the 3-apple high Blue People who live in mushroom houses in the middle of the woods and invisible to the naked eye. There is Clumsy Smurf, Brainy Smurf, Gutsy Smurf, Grouchy Smurf, Chef Smurf, etc. Papa Smurf leads the clan, and there is the one anomaly in the male-dominated group, the adorable female Smurfette (voiced by Katy Perry). Thanks to evil and clumsy wizard Gargamel (played by a live, non-animated human, Hank Azaria), the Smurfs' village is under siege by the wizard and his evil, snarling cat. During their escape, the Blue Kids find themselves sucked into a vortex that lands them in New York City. Why there is a vortex that leads to the Big Apple, I do not understand but I am not looking for logic here (something similar happens in the far superior and magical film, "Enchanted").
So the Smurfs find themselves running around New York and Neil Patrick Harris's apartment (Harris plays a marketing expert), trying in vain to elude the evil Gargamel. Eventually the evil wizard kidnaps Papa Smurf and hopes to remove his "Smurf essence" (What?) with the aid of a dragon wand that will make the wizard more powerful! Right, sure.
I loved the opening sequence of "The Smurfs" so much that I had hoped it would remain there. Instead the film's four screenwriters decide to send the Blue Kids to New York, and so we get some inspired cameos from Liz Smith, Joan Rivers and Tim Gunn (the most inspired). Sofia Vergara is fun for a while though her role in this film is misguided and confused - either she is not bitchy enough or the writers forgot to make her bitchier when she threatens to fire Harris's character through a text! Neil Patrick Harris seems like he is in a daze but I did enjoy his slapstick pratfalls (though he could have used some of the wit he brings to his TV show, "How I Met Your Mother").
The Smurfs are fun to watch (the Scottish Gutsy Smurf - a new Smurf - is my favorite) and are animated through CGI technology in such a way that pays tribute to the animated series, instead of having them jump around frantically like so many other CGI animated pictures that combine live-action (cueing Mr. Garfield Kitty). The movie gets a bit tedious (Smurf this, Smurf that, only so much I can take) but there is a hint of devilish wit in the few scenes between Gargamel and Sofia Vergara. As I said before, there is something for the kids and something for the adults.
No comments:
Post a Comment