 Title: Smurfs: The Lost Village Director: Kelly Asbury Studio: Sony Pictures Genre(s): Comedy Rated: PG (For some mild action and rude humor) |
A famous frog once claimed it wasn’t easy being green and I
suppose the same can be said if you’re blue.
For if you’re blue, then you’re going to be seeing ad’s everywhere for a
movie called “Smurfs: The Lost Village.” You may remember that a movie called “Smurfs 2”
was in theaters just a few years ago, but that movie was so bad that even the
studio decided not to continue to torture their paying customers with it, so
they’ve rebooted the thing with this one.
Now we have a Smurfs movie that is fully animated without a hint of live
action, and regardless of how the final product turned out, I think we can all agree
that fully animated is what this needed to be the whole time. That said, blue people are still likely to
walk away disappointed because the rebooted product is still not good, it’s
just…not as bad as what had come before.
If being blue isn’t easy though, then it really isn’t easy
being a girl. For in the village of the
Smurfs everyone is a boy. Boys aren’t
that complicated though (ho ho) so most of them have names in relation to their
one note personality traits. Clumsy,
Nosey, Brainy, Grouchy, Papa, and so forth.
The only girl in the village is Smurfette, who baffles the rest of
Smurfs. Not only because they make them
feel deep Smurf feelings that they otherwise wouldn’t feel, but she doesn’t
have a definite personality trait, so no one is sure what to make of her. Some of you feminists may have just read that
line and assumed the movie is fitting girls into a box, but in this case, it is
a compliment because it means Smurfette has layers to her that makes it
difficult to put a label on her. She is the
only female in a village full of boys though, which is obviously going to
bother her.
What she could use is a journey of self-discovery. Maybe she could have that when she must find
a lost village of Smurfs in the Forbidden Forest before the evil wizard
Gargamel does? For that matter, maybe the
journey can contain lots of visual gags, colorful creators, and pop songs that
will make kids want the soundtrack on the way out? Maybe we can even throw in a female
empowerment message to boot? Oh, we’ve
got all these things?! Well, I guess
that means the movie will be pretty…okay.
Yeah, okay. This is probably where
I should muse in high dialect about how all the colorful imagery and fast
movement doesn’t make “Smurfs: The Lost Village” a fulfilling journey that will
stick with you for years on end (or even in a couple weeks when the next family
film comes out). I probably should. But, honestly, it’s the Smurfs.
As a TV show it was nothing more than innocent children’s
entertainment. When it made the leap to
live action the results were far worse than anyone could have possibly
imagined. Really, the fact that “Smurfs:
The Lost Village” isn’t a continuation of those films is an improvement in
itself. The fact that the movie is free
from live action and can take advantage of the bright colors and smooth
movements is always going to be a plus.
Is it significantly better than the previous films? Undeniably, but that still doesn’t make it
worth seeing. I think it works well
enough for young kids, but I think it works more as a ninety-minute babysitter
than it does a movie you take the family out and spend lots of money to
see. I applaud the studio for taking the
correct steps for fixing the mistakes they made, but doing what they should
have been doing from the beginning is not enough for a passing grade. Maybe it would have if they answered my
question of what color a Smurf turns into when its choking.
