BEFORE: Hank Azaria carries over again from "Happy Feet Two", and he brings Sofia Vergara with him - very kind of him to do so. Azaria does a lot of voice-over work, so as a result Gargamel is going to sound like Moe the Bartender, in the same way that Yoda sounds like Grover.
THE PLOT: When the evil wizard Gargamel chases the tiny blue Smurfs out of their village, they tumble from their magical world into New York City.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Gnomeo & Juliet" (Movie #1,318), "Enchanted" (Movie #443)
AFTER: I probably should have put this next to "Gnomeo & Juliet" because of the resemblance of the smurfs and the gnomes, but the linking didn't lead me that way. And this is a very similar plot to "Enchanted", with the inhabitants of fairyland coming to NYC with their enemy following. I know we've got that statue in the harbor with all of that "Give me your huddled masses" poetry on it, but as a resident of NYC, we've really got to do something about immigration, especially all these unwanted magical creatures. Get back on your unicorn and go back to whatever story you popped out of!
Again, this is mostly crap. Kids really need to band together, rise up and demand better movies from Hollywood. But they don't, so we're stuck with films like this. When I was in junior high my class boycotted the school lunch program and demanded improvements - kids should boycott dumb movies until Hollywood learns to make better ones.
I just didn't care about the Smurfs, because they were so annoying - even if the movie admits they're annoying, and their outlook is annoying, and their song is annoing, it's not a help. They're still annoying. I almost rooted for Gargamel, except he was even more annoying. And the film couldn't decide if he was a powerful evil wizard or an incompetent screw-up - he can't be both. See, kids, this is what I'm talking about, first two points of order - demand better continuity and clearer plotlines. And number 3, demand less annoying central characters.
So, the Smurfs travel to our dimension, in which we have old comic books featuring the Smurfs? While we're at it, kids, demand fictional universes that fit together in more reasonable ways. You didn't see Spider-Man or the Avengers leaping out of a comic-book, did you? It didn't work in "Rocky and Bullwinkle", so please, stop doing it!
Even discounting the blatant product placement, and the 14 millionth senseless use of "Back in Black" in a movie soundtrack, there's not much to champion here. There are films that parents can enjoy with their kids, but I'd guess this isn't one of them. I fell asleep during the first attempt at viewing, and I had no desire to wake up and try again. So I had to give up an hour of my Sunday afternoon to finish this, and I'll never get that time back.
I hope that this film, and "Hop", represent the low point - I've got to finish this topic and start climbing upwards again.
Also starring Neil Patrick Harris (last heard in "Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs"), Jayma Mays (last seen in "Flags of Our Fathers"), Tim Gunn, and the voices of Jonathan Winters (last seen in "Moon Over Parador"), Katy Perry, Alan Cumming (last seen in "Nicholas Nickleby"), George Lopez (last heard in "Rio"), Fred Armisen (last seen in "Easy A"), Anton Yelchin (last seen in "Charlie Bartlett"), and quick vocal cameos from Kenan Thompson, John Oliver, Jeff Foxworthy, Wolfgang Puck, Paul Reubens and B.J. Novak. Liz Smith, Tom Colicchio, Joan Rivers and Michael Musto were all in a crowd shot, probably feeling embarrassed.
RATING: 2 out of 10 pigeons
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