- 2 days ago
The Smurfs get rebooted with an extremely eclectic voice cast, trying to be better than their past films... and yet Film Brain is still left feeling blue.
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00:00Hello and welcome to Projector, and whether you like it or not, the Smurfs are back in
00:04an all-star animated reboot.
00:23In Smurf Village, every Smurf has a role that defines them, except for No Name, voiced by
00:28James Corden, who is struggling to find his thing.
00:32But Papa Smurf, voiced by John Goodman, is abducted by evil wizard Razmel and his brother
00:37Gargamel, both voiced by J.P. Carliac, who is searching for the magic book Jaunty, voiced
00:42by Amy Sedaris, the last one he doesn't possess that will help him destroy all good in the
00:48universe.
00:49Smurfette, voiced by Rihanna, leads the Smurfs into the real world to find him, with the
00:54aid of Papa's brother Ken, voiced by Nick Hoffman, and No Name might find his purpose
00:59after all.
01:00Created in 1958, Pao Smurfs have had quite a long history on the big and small screen.
01:06There was a film in 1965, which was basically a collection of shorts, there was the Smurfs
01:11and the Magic Flute from the 70s, and of course, the 80s television series.
01:17But when people think of the Smurfs these days, they're probably thinking of the ones made
01:21by Sony, particularly the animated live-action hybrid films, both directed by Raja Gosnell,
01:28which were absolutely terrible.
01:30When people think of bad, obnoxious kids films filled with lazy fart jokes and people getting
01:35hit in the nuts, yeah, that's precisely what those Smurfs movies are.
01:40One of the very few redeeming qualities about them is Hank Azaria's performance as Gargamel,
01:44who is completely going for broke, so much so that you kind of feel a sense of second-hand
01:49embarrassment for him. The last Smurfs movie that Sony made, the fully animated The Lost
01:55Village, which I actually reviewed at the time, was a big improvement on those films.
01:59It wasn't a great movie, but it was certainly far closer to the spirit of Pao's comics and
02:04meant to be an empowering story aimed at young girls with the tribe of Smurf women, with big-name
02:10voices like Julia Roberts and Michelle Rodriguez.
02:13Unfortunately, The Lost Village did far worse at the box office than live-action films. I would argue that those movies,
02:19the movies may have made a lot of money, but they have harmed the Smurfs brand, because having seen
02:24them, just hearing the word Smurf makes my soul want to exit out of my body.
02:30Now, Paramount has attained the rights to the characters, so naturally we've got a reboot,
02:34which is intended to be the first in a new franchise, because of course it is.
02:38This new Smurfs, no the in the title, is directed by Chris Miller. No, not the one that works with
02:45Phil Lord, the other one, who has done a lot of work for DreamWorks Animation, particularly Shrek. He was the
02:52voice of the Magic Mirror, he directed the third film, and the first Puss in Boots. It's kind of a bit of a
02:58Joel Cohen situation when you think about it. And it's written by Pam Brady, who worked with Matt Stone and
03:03Trey Parker on South Park and Team America, but most recently she's been doing family films like Ruby
03:09Gilman and the upcoming Spongebob film, Search for Squarepants. Speaking of Spongebob, there's actually a
03:15short film attached to Smurfs called Order Up, where Spongebob annoys Squidward with the order bell.
03:21Apparently this was produced around 2011 or 2012, but was never actually released until now for whatever
03:27reason. Which is just very odd, because it's a completely dialogue-free bit of slapstick and
03:33very brief, and seems to have just been added to bump Smurfs over the 90 minute mark. But anyway,
03:40back to Smurfs, you look at the talent involved and it does seem like there was a concerted effort
03:45here to try and make a better movie than the live-action Sony ones. And the sad part is they've
03:50made something which really isn't all that superior and at times isn't even all that different to
03:57what came before. I'll start with the strengths and that here is the animation. I quite like the art
04:03style in this movie. The mix of 3D with 2D looking elements, it's very reminiscent of something like
04:09the Peanuts movie. So you've got these CG characters that are shaded to look flat, but their expressions
04:15in particular, like their eyes and mouths and the very occasional speech bubble, have this very hand-drawn
04:21look about them and it all feels very in keeping with the original comics. A lot of the animation is
04:26very bright and lively and colourful, especially when the Smurfs are travelling between dimensions.
04:32Honestly, at times, it feels like it's mostly an excuse for the animators to just show off their
04:37stuff. And there are sequences in isolation that are quite impressive during the climax of the movie.
04:42There's a section where Razmel follows No Name and Smurfette into different dimensions and you get
04:47all these different scenes where the art style changes. So you've got a scene in 8-bit as a side-scrolling
04:52platform, you've got a bit where they become crude drawings on lined paper, and there's even a bit
04:57where they become Japanese anime. It's all very Spider-verse, but those minutes were probably some
05:03of the best in the entire movie and gave me a couple of laughs. Maybe that should have been the
05:08concept for the entire movie because those few minutes show way more invention and fun than most of
05:14the other 70 or so. It definitely looks most visually cohesive in the scenes set in Smurf Village,
05:20but again, they turned this into a live-action hybrid, so when the Smurfs enter into the real
05:25world, they have a more three-dimensional shading and look about them. Although even this is significantly
05:30more appealing than how they looked in the Sony films though, where they tried to make them photo-real,
05:35but they just looked uncanny and rubbery. That kind of strange mixture of big animated features and
05:42realistic skin textures. It's just creepy. At least the 2025 version remembers their cartoon characters
05:49and treats them as such. But doing a live-action hybrid movie is an own goal if you're trying to
05:55differentiate this from what came before, because it does feel reminiscent of those movies in these
06:00parts, particularly the scenes set in Paris, which was where the Smurfs 2 were set. But in execution,
06:06it's also completely pointless. The reason the Sony films did that was because they had a live-action
06:11cast for the Smurfs to interact with, which is not the case for the 2025 film. There is no Neil
06:17Patrick Harris here. In fact, there's no major live-action human characters at all. They're just
06:22all background extras that the Smurfs interact around and try to avoid being seen by. So you're
06:28just wondering, why have they bothered to do this? Why go to the effort of filming live-action
06:33background plates where you could just make the entire movie animated because they never interact
06:38with anyone? Heck, the sequence where the Smurfs end up in the Australian Outback is mostly, if not
06:43completely computer generated anyway, just made to look photo real. So why not just make the whole
06:48movie like that with CG humans? Not to mention this creates some truly baffling logic. There's a scene
06:55where the Smurfs have to sneak into Razzmell's castle, which for some strange reason is in the middle
07:00of an autobahn on the outskirts of Munich. So they get a delivery driver to send food to the castle,
07:06and that delivery motorcyclist is live-action footage. But the inside of Razzmell's castle is
07:11totally animated, and that includes him and his human staff, like a butler, and his trainee
07:17henchman Joel, voiced by Dan Levy. So what, is there like an animated force field around this castle?
07:23The approach is wildly inconsistent, and it creates some truly bewildering holes that make
07:30absolutely no sense if you even stop to think about it for literally a split second.
07:36And that's the thing. You look past all the whiz-bang pop and all the stuff that's designed to distract
07:41the kids, and the story is an absolute wisp, even by the standards of things aimed at younger viewers.
07:47There are 20 minute Saturday morning cartoons that have more depth than this film has at feature
07:52length. The story wants to bring the Smurfs back to the adventure stories that make up their comics,
07:56but there's so little tying any of it together, and it's constantly moving to try and hide that fact.
08:02They zip around from Paris to Australia to Munich on a little more than Mad Libs logic.
08:07We need to find Papa's brother Ken, and he's hiding in a disco ball.
08:11Wait, why is he hiding in a disco ball in the middle of a nightclub? I don't know.
08:15But the whole movie is kind of like that disco ball in a way, just glittery and shiny, but completely hollow.
08:21It's a movie that vastly underestimates the attention span of small children, that if they
08:26even let up a little, they'll get restless, and I don't think that's true. Kids don't need
08:31distraction, they just want to be engaged, just like everyone else, and they'll lose interest if they
08:36aren't. And what's unfortunate is that there's glimpses of a bit more substance that it never
08:42capitalises on. The heart of the story is meant to be James Korn's no-name, a Smurf that hasn't found his
08:48identity. He doesn't know what his role is. Clearly the Smurfs aren't in need of an annoying talk show
08:54host. But you could easily make this into a metaphor for anxiety or loneliness, things that would connect
09:00with viewers of all ages, but especially younger ones who could relate to it. It's a very common
09:05theme in kids media, but that's because everyone learns what they're good at, learns what they're
09:10passionate about, that sense of self and identity. There shouldn't really be something in that concept.
09:16And Corden even gets a big plaintive musical number early on called Always on the Outside that's so
09:23out of place amongst the rest of the soundtrack, it's almost like it's straight out of a completely
09:27different film entirely. But the big problem is that most of his character's journey is done in the
09:32first five minutes. Very early on into it, he suggests, what if he was into magic? Oh no no no no,
09:39there's never been a magic Smurf before. Smurfs can't do magical or something, but sure enough,
09:44he develops magic powers. So most of the film isn't actually him finding his purpose, it's more just
09:50having the confidence to believe he can do it and use his abilities, which is a bit less interesting.
09:57But you can clearly see what they're taking inspiration from. They want to be the Lego movie,
10:02and the hyperactive and self-aware humour often feels like they're trying to be Lord and Miller,
10:08you know, the other Chris Miller. And No Name is the equivalent of Chris Pratt's Emmett, who becomes
10:14the special but can't figure out why when he's so generic and ordinary. But the difference is that
10:20his purpose wasn't obvious at the outset, and also that Chris Pratt is way more charming and likable
10:26than James Corden. No Name should have also been the main character, but he ends up competing for
10:31Focus with Smurfette, voiced by Rihanna, continuing the tradition of the character being voiced by pop
10:36stars following Katy Perry and Demi Lovato, and Rihanna is also a producer on this. If you've seen
10:43Battleship, you'll know that Rihanna isn't much of an actor, and she's also not much of a voice actor
10:48either. She was previously in Home, where she was passable if a bit miscast, voicing a kid with her
10:55very husky voice, but she's so much more expressive when she's singing than when she's delivering lines,
11:01which often sound a bit flat. She's not putting enough of her personality into it, and it makes her
11:07dialogue monotone, which is a problem when she's trying to deliver jokes. But the script also botches
11:13her character too. If you're familiar with your Smurfs lore, and I'll forgive you if you aren't,
11:18you'll be aware that Smurfette, the only girl in the village, although not the only female Smurf we meet in
11:23the film was created from clay by Gargamel as basically a honeypot, but she was turned good.
11:29But the film very cack-handedly explains this in some early dialogue, almost paraphrased exactly as
11:35I just said it. You could very easily tie this into the theme of identity and finding one's place,
11:40and the idea of not letting your past define who you are. Admittedly, that was a big part of the Sony
11:46films, especially the second one and The Lost Village, but they could have easily mirrored that into
11:51the arc with no name. But they mostly just bring it up to quickly set up some tension later on as to
11:57whether or not she's working with Razumel, which we know that she isn't and is only playing along to
12:03trick him, so there isn't any. It's just messy and poorly implemented. On a related note, it also isn't
12:10even that much from a musical. Now that might be sweet relief to some, but this was originally titled
12:16The Smurfs Musical, but they appear to have dropped that once they realised there was only three or four
12:20songs actually sung by the characters during the film. All the other songs, including a terrible cover
12:26of Higher Love, just play out on the soundtrack. You cast Rihanna as your lead, and then you only give
12:32up one song to sing, and that song, Friend of Mine, where Smurfette consoles No Name, is a rare moment
12:39where the movie stops to breathe, but then it turns out the plus has happened off screen during the musical
12:44number because Razumel has attacked and abducted the other Smurfs. The fact that a major plot point
12:50occurs while Smurfette and No Name are bouncing around in kangaroo pouches sounds like it should be
12:55a joke, but it isn't presented as one. It's just another example with the poor focus and storytelling.
13:01Would have been nice to have actually seen that on screen, perhaps. And again, it's clear that another
13:06movie they were taking inspiration from was the Trolls films, especially the opening dance number
13:11introducing the characters, everything goes with blue. That's sound fashion advice from my experience,
13:17but that musical number could have easily come from one of those films. But Smurfs didn't really have
13:22the surreal or frankly downright weird sensibility those films have, especially their sense of humour.
13:29Yes, that's right. I found myself yearning for the sophistication of the Trolls films.
13:34That's really saying something. And I keep pointing out all these other animated films it wants to be,
13:40but it's rather ironic for a film that's about identity that it struggles to create one of its own.
13:46You know what else it's trying to be? A superhero movie of sorts. It's funny that
13:51opens hot on the heels of James Gunn's Superman because these other blue things with an S
13:55seems to be trying to do something similar to that film by making kindness into a superpower.
14:00Needless to say, not quite as successfully. We not only meet the international neighbourhood
14:06watch Smurfs in Paris, a group of ninjas led by Sandra Oh's Moxie who then promptly leave the film
14:11five minutes later, but we also discover that the Smurfs are the guardian ears of good or some such
14:18thing. It all feels like it's trying too hard, not helped by the fact that it's tied into some
14:23overly convoluted backstory involving these magic books that John Goodman's Papa Smurf and his brothers,
14:30Ken and Ron, voiced by Nick Offerman and Kurt Russell, fought to protect. Yes, you did hear
14:36that correctly. Kurt Russell shows up for a few minutes as Papa's long lost brother with hippie
14:41Rapunzel hair. Why couldn't we have had an entire movie of those three? Talk about threatening me with
14:47a good time. And yeah, this has the most bizarrely eclectic voice cast in recent memory, so parents can
14:53sit through the credits and be astonished at the people who show up for maybe three, four lines.
14:59Jimmy Kimmel turns up very late into the proceedings. There's an evil counselor space wizards,
15:04voiced by Octavia Spencer, Hannah Wanningham and Nick Krull, who could have easily been totally
15:10written out. Probably the best value in the cast is Natasha Lyonne, who voices Marma Poot, the leader of
15:15these squiggly, cake-chomping kleptomaniacs called Snooterpoot. And her very distinctive line
15:21deliveries provided most of the laughs for me. It runs on fear. Why? I don't know.
15:30It's also worth briefly knowing the UK version replaces some of the bit part smurf voices with
15:35local celebrities like John Richardson, Rylan Clark and Giovanna Fletcher, a stunt that never stops
15:41being pointless at best and kind of annoying at worst. Luckily, they're not too distracting, but
15:47maybe they could have bothered to at least update the film's end credits with the actors they
15:51replaced, including the director. But a lot of these faults could have been forgiven if Smurfs was
15:56funny, but it has more with the farting convention. I saw this in a screen with quite a few families
16:02in it, and you wanna know how many times the kids laughed? Not once. Stone silence throughout.
16:09Credit for being well behaved, I guess, but most of the polite chuckles came from me,
16:14and I don't think I'm the target audience. The guy sat at the back trying not to look too embarrassed
16:19that he's having to watch this for work. Even the gags for the adults aren't good. The scenes
16:23where Gargamel and Razamel are all jokes about Zoom calls, blocked emails, and LinkedIn.
16:28They're boring jokes for bored adults. Of the Smurfs movies made in the last 15 years,
16:34The Lost Village remains the best one. And this does come in second, but that's mostly because
16:40the other live action films are absolutely dismal, and not because this derivative reboot is all that
16:46good. But it does feel like a missed opportunity somewhat to make something surprisingly good,
16:52especially with all that talent involved. The best I can say for Smurfs is that coming out of the
16:57screening, I thought, could have been worse. Talk about damning with faint praise. Mostly,
17:04it's like eating an entire bag of Haribo Smurfs sweets in one go. Sickly, and may have laxative effects.
17:12If you liked this review and you want to support my work, you can give me a tip at my Ko-fi page,
17:16or where YouTube's Super Thanks feature is right below the video. Or you can go smurfing wild over
17:22at my Patreon, where you can see my videos early among other perks, including access to my Discord
17:27server. And you can also join YouTube memberships for similar perks. Or you can just simply like,
17:32share and subscribe, it all helps. Until next time, I'm Matthew Buck, Fading Out.
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