Directed By Chris Miller

Starring – Rihanna, James Corden, Nick Offerman

The Plot – When Papa Smurf (John Goodman) is mysteriously taken by evil wizards, Razamel (JP Karliak) and Gargamel, Smurfette (Rihanna) leads the Smurfs on a mission into the real world to save him. With the help of new friends, the Smurfs must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe

Rated PG for action, adult language, and some rude humor

Smurfs | Official Trailer (2025 Movie) – Rihanna

POSITIVES

As expected in being commanded by Chris Miller, the same man who brought so many compelling textures to “Puss In Boots: The Last Wish”, the film artistically elicits some vibrantly radiant animation that brings this colorful world of chaos to life, with creative dexterity among the movie’s many versatile styles that are showcased in a cross-dimensional sequence that easily stood as the highlight of the movie for me. While the detail of the three-dimensional encompassing are a bit lacking in believable definition, the bulbously blossoming canvases and meticulous shifts from two-dimensional hand drawn, to computer-generated, to even anime, give the film a lot of punchy personality that visualize its characters accordingly, especially with a surprisingly prestigious ensemble of heavy hitters along for the ride that each require expressionism to boost what each of them is bringing audibly to the portrayal. While I still don’t fully understand how or why actors like Kurt Russell, John Goodman, or Octavia Spencer want anything to do with this lifelessly uninspiring intellectual property obligation, I can say that a few of them are prescribing legitimate vocal twerking to the range of their various deliveries, with Natasha Lyonne, Amy Sedaris, and a double dose of JP Karliak disappearing seamlessly into the expressively energetic depths of their respective characters’ personalities. As to where the rest of the ensemble are essentially exuding nothing obscuring or diverting to the familiarity of their tones, this trio continuously contorts vocalizing in ways that make it quite difficult to discern just who is embodying them, all the while showcasing each of their tremendous professionalism that sees them bringing so much humbling heart to roles that are easily lost in the fray among the film’s many characters that continuously move in and out of frame like a child in a sugar rush. Lastly, the film thankfully and responsibly doesn’t overstay its welcome, at 80 minutes of brief screen time (Not counting the credits), which help to maintain emphasis in the breakneck pacing of the storytelling, but also the urgency of the plot, which has a self-awareness to the kind of child demographic that will make up an overwhelming majority of its audience.

NEGATIVES

Over the last couple of years, I’ve heard a lot of films described to have been cheaply manufactured by A.I, but not until “Smurfs” has that felt completely representative for everything encompassed in the film, especially with a screenplay of assorted parts that feel chaotically plucked from superior predecessors that did it better. The most obvious of those definitely feels like 2016’s “Trolls”, which also involved a village of musical creatures on a mission to save their aging leader, while finding the uniqueness in themselves to persevere. While you could easily make this comparison to any number of contemporary kids movies over the last decade, it does little to showcase the uniqueness and charm of the Smurfs property that feels freshly innovative or at the very least remotely unpredictable, and considering the film’s first half bounces from various subplots in an effort to see what effectively sticks, it forgets about many of the movie’s initial building blocks during the opening act, in which it rarely if ever returns to. This makes it incredibly difficult to maintain focus in the air of a narrative that feels a bit scatterbrained, but beyond that revels in a plot that feels like it was put together with the intention to sell toys or music downloads, especially with the latter involving five musical sequences throughout the film’s duration, which continuously take away focus and attention from the air of the narrative that grows less important by the second. The songs and sequences themselves do present some stunningly elaborate animation to add to the enchantment of the moment, but the majority of the song selections lack any kind of lyrical significance to the themes discussed at the forefront of the storytelling, all the while tapping into the overwhelming essence of contemporary hipness that sees it falling for the same studio-influenced mistakes in personality that many kids movies before it made to such failing results. On that front, the dialogue and humor to the movie fail almost immediately before they’re even fully delivered, both with contemporary lingo like “Bangers” or “Sick” that feel like studio intrusiveness, but also the same lazy kind of puns with its titular protagonists that grew arduously frustrating by the 23rd time they irrigated such a dry well. To be fair, I don’t have an issue with puns if they’re done cleverly in the wordplay of the intention, but like previous Smurf movies, they’re simply just replacing a vulgarity with the word “Smurf”, over and over again, and it grows less charming the more frequently they use it in the very same scene, especially with Nick Offerman, who goes so overboard in one scene featuring lines like “I think I Smurfed my pants” or “Let’s go Smurf that wizard up” that I found myself growing internally angry about something that literally didn’t concern me, outlining everything that I hate about contemporary kids movies that proves that Hollywood has little to no faith in youthful intelligence. If this isn’t enough, there’s still so much excessive waste to a film that barely clocks in at 80 minutes, particularly the trailer-heavy moments of the Smurfs venturing into the real world, which holds no significant meaning to the conflict, other than the idea that it would be cute to see the Smurfs dancing to Rihanna songs in a French dance club. This highlights the biggest problem with the movie’s creativity, as every set piece or sequence feels like it was designed separately from one another, without anything in the way of meaningful synergy or momentum to the movie’s pacing, and instead this unrelenting episodic approach to script outlining that made this feel like three episodes of a TV cartoon pasted together, instead of a feature length product under one continuity of coherence. If the movie was focused more on developing a couple of its litany of characters, or even their individualized conflicts, then the journey to get to such a convenient resolution would be paid with more of a gratifying emphasis to audiences who at least attempted to invest in them, but the film’s climax is overwhelmed with such a feeling of unsatisfying insignificance that it underwhelms the meaning of what is already the lowest hanging fruit of giftwrapped messages to its absorbing audience, hitting with a total lack of detectability in ways that could’ve been effortlessly attained with more time spent alongside these characters, but instead remains dormant by the thinktank in ideas that practically doubles every ten minutes within the movie’s convoluted consistency. Finally, I hate to single out just one of the many emotionally vapid performances from this aforementioned stacked ensemble, but considering Rihanna is the focal point of the movie’s marketing, it should come with grave warning that she gives one of the year’s worst performances, with emphasized deliveries so wooden that they don’t feel naturally resonant in the visuals of the animation, but also distracting to a scene that centers around her. The movie kind of figures out her incapability by the third act, where she essentially takes a back seat to Nick Offerman’s Ken, or James Corden’s No Name Smurf (I’m not kidding about that name), but every once in a while she’s given lines to flatly mumble her way through, and while Rihanna is a top tier musician with a catalogue of solid hits, she would be best served to stay away from the silver screen, especially if she can’t even bring out the sassy sensibilities of this character’s design.

OVERALL
“Smurfs” is another abhorrently insufferable attempt at maintaining the intellectual property of a studio, while also serving as a battle of wills for the love of parents towards a child who drives them to see such soul-sucking artificiality. Without anything in the way of clever or inventiveness towards the material producing even a single solitary laugh, desperation hipness in personality, or a mostly wasted ensemble that phone in their next paychecks, the film is a smurfing mess of a franchise that feels outdated even by 2010’s standards, surmising a catastrophic cringe-inducing engagement that left me blue with banality

My Grade: 2.6 or F