Smurfs: Pale reboot of a successful franchise

The 2011 ‘Smurfs’ raked in $563m, and the two sequels made $347m and $197m, respectively. This one, directed by Chris Miller and written by Pam Brady, is a reboot meant to carry forward the franchise that began in 1958 to a new beginning at the worldwide box-office.

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This film about a group of dwarf-sized blue humanoids called Smurfs, who live in Smurf Village, has a belaboured premise. Papa Smurf (voiced by John Goodman), the leader of Surf Village, has been kidnapped, and the other Smurfs go on a mission to save him.

Smurfs have names based on their respective defining personality characteristics, but there’s one lone Smruf who has no clue about his own skill sets and they obviously name him No Name Smurf. The Smurfs are a male-dominated community and there’s only one “alpha female”, Smurfette (voiced by Rihanna), who is sassy and conflicted because of being the odd one by way of her gender and origin — she happens to be the only one made of clay.

Smurfette is sympathetic to No Name Smurf’s (James Corden) identity crisis. But the main story is about the Smurfs — Smurfette, Jaunty, Hefty, Vanity, Worry, No Name, Brainy and Grouchy (Chris Miller) — and a turtle (Marshmellow) attempting to rescue Papa Smurf from the clutches of evil space wizards Razamel and Garganel (both voiced by JP Karliak), whose main goal is to capture the Smurfs and use their magic book for unscrupulous reasons.

The crisis about identity is short-lived and the narrative hurries about to get to the next chase sequence. No Name can suddenly do magic, a sort of superpower that can create breaks in portals and hurtle them through different dimensions.

This adventure has a live-action backdrop, one where we see shoes of humans and the tiny miniature Smurfs weaving in and out of harm’s way as their world collides with the human one in an inter-dimensional set-up. We see all the action shot from the Smurfs’ POVs.

The animation here is colourful and beautifully blends Peyo’s 2D character designs with a 3D environment. The sequence, which involves characters venturing through several portals, showcases different creatives involving Claymation, 8-bit graphics, anime, etc, and is particularly enjoyable, but the rest of the film pales in comparison.

The comedy feels humourless. There’s hardly anything to laugh about here. Writer Pam Brady’s jokes fall flat. The lack of focus in plotting, the rushed-through narrative and characters we never get to genuinely care about, makes this a serviceable but charmless experience. Kids may get enamoured by the visually colourful and appealing animation, but even they are unlikely to find this misadventure funny. Even at 91 minutes, this film feels like a drag.