Created in 1958 by Belgian comic-book artist Peyo, the Smurfs are one of the world’s most recognizable brands.
However, on the basis of 2017’s underwhelming Smurfs: The Lost Village—their third and final big-screen outing from Sony Animation—there’s reason to wonder if their stateside popularity has finally run its course. Those questions will only grow louder with Smurfs, a Paramount Animation reboot in theaters July 18 that reimagines the tiny blue characters in a bizarrely new manner.
A musical with songs from Rihanna (who voices Smurfette), Chris Miller’s CGI film is as bright, bouncy, and kind-hearted as its ancestors. Yet despite a story that’s about one Smurf’s search for what makes him special, it’s ultimately an odyssey that—weird characterizations notwithstanding—is tiresomely unexceptional.
In Smurf Village, everyone boogies to Tyla’s “Everything Goes With Blue,” but the community’s boisterousness is mitigated by the unhappiness of No Name (James Corden), a Smurf frustrated by his lack of defining purpose. Try as he might, No Name can’t figure out precisely who he is, and during a solitary walk, he croons, “I wish I had my own thing.”
Lo and behold, that wish comes true courtesy of a magic book named Jaunty (Amy Sedaris) that’s been hiding out in Smurf Village for a century, and which grants him magic powers. This stuns and delights his compatriots save for Papa Smurf (John Goodman), whose concern is justified; when No Name conjures fireworks in the sky, he inadvertently reveals the location of the village to Razamel (JP Karliak), the squat wizard brother of traditional Smurf nemesis Gargamel (also Karliak), who promptly uses his own magic—and the efforts of nerdy henchman Joel (Dan Levy)—to snatch Papa Smurf.
Though Razamel is happy with this prize, he truly covets the magic book—which is one of a set of four that’s long been sought by the Intergalactic Evil Wizard Alliance, which plans to use them to cast reality into darkness. Before he’s whisked off to Razamel’s creepy castle, Papa Smurf tells his brethren to find Ken (Nick Offerman), whom they seek out in Paris (which is live-action, despite everything else being computer-generated) and who, they discover, is Papa’s brother.
Ken is something of a grouchy know-it-all who acts exasperated by Smurfette and No Name’s cluelessness about their true nature. Nonetheless, their ignorance proves relatable given Smurfs’ big revelation: not simply cute and funny forest inhabitants, the Smurfs are actually the Guardianeers of Good tasked with defending Jaunty and maintaining peace and harmony in the universe.
This higher calling is the film’s means of inventing a new mythology and ramping up the stakes, but it feels, from the start, like an overreach, saddling the diminutive do-gooders with a stature, and responsibility, that’s too grand for them. While Peyo’s creatures have always loved adventure and battled malevolent sorcerers, Smurfs takes that notion to an excessive level, with the Smurfs spending most of their time traveling through interdimensional portals and learning about their legendary heritage.
Part of that involves Papa and Ken’s long-lost bro Ron (Kurt Russell), who in a flashback is revealed to be a confident warrior with long-flowing hair who seemingly perished in battle with Razamel, and whose role in these proceedings is to be a convenient deus ex machina.
As it rewrites its heroes as fabled protectors of the realm, Smurfs also concentrates on the plight of No Name, who relates to Smurfette because—as a creation of Gargamel that was meant to destroy the Smurfs—she too was once an outsider who had to understand her genuine self.
Unfortunately, No Name is a contrived drag whom Corden voices with a mopey earnestness that’s more irritating than endearing. Rather than playing its various one-note personalities off each other, Miller’s film largely ignores its collection of Smurfs in favor of this blank-slate dud, and the result is that, for all its colorful sound and fury, its action is lackluster.
Gargamel and his beloved pet cat Azrael (Rachel Butera) eventually take part in Smurfs, although the iconic baddie is primarily asked to just pine for the affection of Razamel, who’s the material’s real Big Bad and whose hooked nose is even more pronounced (and antisemitic-y) than his brother’s.
Razamel, who’s apparently been hunting Smurfs for as long as his sibling, isn’t the only novel addition to Smurfs lore; during the course of their escapades, the blue creatures additionally encounter a race of furry Snooterpoots led by the bossy, screamy Mama Poot (Natasha Lyonne). The amount of stuff the film piles on, however, is inversely proportional to its charm, and not helping matters are the jokey shout-outs to modernity—such as Razamel exasperatedly exclaiming, “Why wouldn’t I use my podcast microphones for my Zooms?!”—that are strewn throughout Pam Brady’s busy script.
One need not be a Smurfs purist (is there such a thing?) to recognize that, by elevating its protagonists to superhero status, Smurfs is an awkward departure from the franchise’s origins. Straining to make them relevant by imbuing them with titanic purpose, it becomes merely a hodgepodge of nonsense that grows less interesting with each subsequent development.
Moreover, despite starting with two songs, it largely drops its pretense as a musical by the midway point. This means headliner Rihanna is mostly around for straightforward vocal duties, and while she’s as capable as the rest of her illustrious castmates (including Jimmy Kimmel, Sandra Oh, Nick Kroll, and Hannah Waddingham), the decision to not take greater advantage of her is a puzzling misstep.
Then again, so is Smurfs on the whole. Miller’s rambunctious aesthetics (which sometimes recall The Super Mario Bros Movie) are elevated by comic-authentic thought and speech bubbles, but they otherwise break no new ground, and Corden’s flat performance stymies interest in No Name’s perfunctory journey to self-realization.
Of course, the film’s target audience may not care much about these shortcomings; the non-stop commotion will likely be enough to satisfy them for 92 minutes. Yet clearing that low bar isn’t much of an accomplishment. Failing to reinvigorate the series with outsized mythos and contemporary attitude, it feels like a missed opportunity—and thus summed up by one Smurf’s crude exclamation, “I think I just Smurfed by pants.”
