Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Hemisphere Media Capital,
Neil Patrick Harris, Sofía Vergara, Christina Ricci, Anton Yelchin, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Alan Cumming, Brendan Gleeson, Hank Azaria, Jayma Mays, Katy Perry, Fred Armisen, J.B. Smoove, George Lopez
For years we’ve known that the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) absolutely hates the Smurfs. But he’s created some little creatures similar to the Smurfs called “The Naughties” who are going to help him with this efforts to replace the Smurfs, but they won’t work. Gargamel needs the Smurf essence to turn them into real Smurfs that he can control. Only Smurfette (Katy Perry) has the knowledge to obtain the essense, so Gargamel convinces her that the Smurfs have forgotten her and kidnaps her and brings her to Paris to help him in his plan. The rest of the Smurfs have to find Smurfette and convince her to come back home.
First of all, I have to warn you that I’m too old to have grown up with the Smurfs. For some reason, I never got into watching them with my kids, so I’m not a Smurf fan by any means, and I always found the little rats a bit annoying. Well, maybe more than a bit. Therefore, the Smurfs start off with a big mark against them in my book. I wasn’t a fan of the first Smurfs movie, but I admit this one was probably at least as good, if not better than the first one. The acting is corny, the animation is corny, but I suspect that’s what the Smurfs are about anyway, so I’m sure anyone with a soft spot for the little fellows and one lone adopted girl Smurf will enjoy this revisit to their world, plus the added benefit of bringing them to Paris for an adventure. I am giving this movie a bit higher rating that I probably would if I was basing it on my own enjoyment, but I do realize there are Smurf fans out there, and this is not that bad of a movie, really. So if you have a Smurf fan in your group, this makes a decent rental film, but of course if you’re a Smurf grouch like I am, it’s more of the same old, same old.
EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog
