Rihanna (centre) is among the voice actors bringing the Smurfs to life in yet another big-screen adaptation.Paramount Animation/Supplied
Smurfs
Directed by Chris Miller
Written by Pam Brady, based on the comic by Peyo
Featuring the voices of Rihanna, James Corden and John Goodman
Classification G; 92 minutes
Opens in theatres July 18
If you can’t Smurf anything nice, then don’t Smurf anything at all.
Such is the key lesson to be taken away by discerning parents this weekend after being dragged by their children to yet another big-screen adaptation of everyone’s second-favourite blue-man group.
What makes this new version of Smurfs different from, say, the franchise’s instalments that were released in 2011, 2013 and 2017? Not nearly enough.
Like the 2011 film, which was at the time a massive box-office hit but has been forgotten by all but the most hardcore fans of the Belgian comics artist Peyo, this new Smurfs adventure is a hybrid of CG animation and live-action sequences. Although the “real world” bits here are too few and far between, and feel so hastily composed that it all lands as one big pile of digital slop.
And like the 2017 movie, this version is a semi-musical, even if most of the tracks here are from Rihanna – perhaps the contractual result of convincing the pop star to voice Smurfette.
But if you are the type of child or suspiciously fully grown adult who is somehow wooed by the prospect of seeing a cartoon Rihanna strut her stuff, then good news, because this new movie is little more than a feature-length advertisement for the singer’s recording catalogue.
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Sure, the film technically exists as its own thing. It boasts a bewildering, attention-deficit-disorder-prone story involving parallel dimensions, magical books, ancient wizards, estranged brothers, and Smurfette’s curious addiction to Uber Eats.
There is a solid gag nestled in the third act that briefly flirts with a far more creative direction for the series, even if the moment is lifted wholly from Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And it is always heartening to see fine folks such as John Goodman, Sandra Oh and Nick Offerman (who is dangerously close to being over-exposed) receive steady income for passably entertaining voice work.
Yet when all is said and Smurfed, there’s little reason for director Chris Miller – not The Lego Movie’s far more inventive Christopher Miller, mind you – to have spent so much time and energy to push these Smurfs out into the Smurfin’ world.
But don’t take it from me, a Gargamel-level grump who is far from the target audience. After the mercifully short movie was over, my kids were far more interested in chomping down on the Smurf cake-pops handed out by the local Paramount Pictures promotional team than in discussing anything about the movie itself.
You Smurf some, you lose some.
