Growing up I remember watching The Smurfs cartoons as much as possible. When I heard that the Smurfs were going to come to the big screen I was really unsure how I felt because I did not want this journey of them to the big screen to ruin the memories I have of the cartoon when I was younger. While I was not sure how they would do the film, in the end they tried to do The Smurfs similar to the Muppets movies just with a substitution the Muppet puppets with CGI smurfs and having them interact with regular actors. While this formula has worked well in the Muppet movies, with The Smurfs that formula felt very forced and was lacking something in the end. It is clear that of course this movie was meant for kids and the trying to make adults enjoy the movie too seems to miss the mark for the most part.
Neil Patrick Harris plays Patrick, an advertising executive who inadvertently brings the Smurfs home in his work boxes that are full of product for the campaign he is working. While Harris is his typical self in the role, he just does not come off well as the stressed out employee with a boss that is finicky and so he is stressed out worrying about keeping his job. Harris plays the light hearted roles so much better as those seem to fall into his strengths. While I did laugh with his character I just did not really connect with him. Hank Azaria in the role of Gargamel, the villain that goes against the Smurfs and is completely obsessed with using the blue essence of the Smurfs for all of his own purposes. Azaria greatly embodies the role and really is all in on being his character completely. Azaria was a perfect live version of Gargamel not only in look to that of the animated version, but had the mannerisms down perfectly as well. Sophia Vergara as the finicky boss while believable, they could have taken her character a couple steps farther to help Harris' character be stronger and it would have been nicer to see her on screen more. In the end though the cast ended up being fairly average and I am not sure if it is as much how their characters were written or if it was just average performances by most of the cast.
The story for The Smurfs just did not work. everything in the story felt thrown together and did not gel and work together as a cohesive unit. Somehow they needed to integrate the story and conflict of the Smurfs and Gargamel better with the main story arc for Patrick and his trying to make the ad campaign work. Even though having the Smurfs staying with him makes it tougher, it feels like Patrick does not get too involved with their conflict with Gargamel. The story showed initially that they may combine the conflict by having Gargamel working with Patrick's boss, but they merely teased it and nothing came from it. While the pacing was precisely what one would expect from a movie targeted at kids as it kept moving, but the pacing only further disjointed the story. One aspect within the story that was enjoyable for me was in the climax they went with the fad in movies currently and used some classic rock music, particularly AC/DC which made me smile since I love classic rock.
The Smurfs was a kid targeted movie that probably struggled for even some kids to enjoy. While Neil Patrick Harris and Hank Azaria were enjoyable in their roles they could not make up for the weak story. The story tried to follow the Muppet formula, but it did not translate well. I may have enjoyed the movie more had Sophia Vergara been on screen more and had her character been written to fit her better, but instead I found myself bored. I am giving The Smurfs two buckets of popcorn out of five. For all the loyal followers, I am sorry for all of the kids animated movies lately. I will get a greater variety of movies reviewed again soon.
-The Movie Man
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