The Smurfs is far from the greatest movie out there, but it also is far from the worst. It was a lot of fun. I continue to find it perplexing why so-called professional reviewers insist on
panning kiddie films for being juvenile or simply plotted. Duh. Roger Ebert, who I don't always agree with in his reviews, but still respect his opinions, just put out his "
5 Worst Movies of the Year So Far List," and it only proves that maybe only people who actually attend a kid's movie with a kid should write a review.
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| The Smurfs take Manhattan: (L-R) Clumsy, Grouchy, Papa Smurf, Smurfette, Gutsy and Brainy |
3 of Ebert's bottom 5 are movies squarely aimed at younger folks, or at least the young at heart:
Thor (which he just doesn't seem to be able to stop
slamming,
Mr. Popper's Penguins and the latest
Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It seems a little unnecessarily spiteful of him to pick on these recent films when there was so much other dreck out there this year (
The Green Hornet, No Strings Attached, Just Go With It, Mars Needs Moms, Beastly ...). Even putting together a "worst of" list, whether in July or at all, seems a bit much. But as far as kids movies go, kids don't want nuance. Not from Smurfs or pirates or penguins.
There's actually quite a lot of almost risque humor in
The Smurfs that will sail over children's heads but give their parents or chaperones a few giggles. There was also a direct tribute to the little blue creatures' creator, which was nice — Peyo, the
nom de plume of Belgian artist Pierre Culliford, who created "The Schtroumpfs" in 1958. We ended up at the 3D show, which I was initially not happy about.
Like Ebert, I don't want to see murky, overpriced fare that doesn't really appear to be in three dimensions. But I wasn't going to make the kid wait an hour for the 2D showing, so in we went.
The Smurfs is probably the first of any 3D movies that I have seen, among them the awful
Alice in Wonderland, the IMAX 3D
Deathly Hallows Part 1, and that recent
Pirates of the Caribbean, which actually seemed to integrate the technology from the beginning of the movie until the end, rather than just inserting a few "in your face" moments to justify the higher ticket price. So I'm even glad we saw it in 3D.
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| Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) entertains some unexpected house guests |
The movie begins with a really nice hyper-colored segment set in Smurf Village, where everything is sunshiny until the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) launches an attack which propels the plot and the movie's main Smurfs — Clumsy (Anton Yelchin), Gutsy (Alan Cumming), Grouchy (George Lopez), Smurfette (Katy Perry), Brainy (Fred Armisen), and Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) — to current day New York City, Central Park to be specific, with Gargamel and his naughty cat Azrael hot on their trail. Lucky for the Smurfs they end up at the apartment of Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris) and his wife Grace (Jayma Mays) and hijinks ensue. Any movie that utilizes the great Jonathan Winters is OK in my book.
There were annoying things. Because it's set in NY, someone putting the movie together seemed to have the feeling that it should be peppered with "real" New Yorkers, in tired and unnecessary cameos. So Tim Gunn, Liz Smith, Joan Rivers, and Michael Musto showed up for a scene or two, but why? A few older kids in the audience might recognize Papa Gunn from
Project Runway, but seeing him in a Smurfs movie would just confuse them. As for the rest, if they are there for the adults — if anyone even recognizes them — I'm an ex-NYer, so I did, but I was hardly thrilled to do so — they would, like me, probably think, "Joan Rivers. Who cares?"
Besides the boring cameos, the dilemma of whether Harris would prove successful with his boss or his job was also a big yawn. Sofía Vergara, as Harris's obnoxious boss, started to have a subplot with Azaria that began and then disappeared.
The Smurfs would have been a far better and tighter film if it had stayed squarely with Harris and Mays and the Smurfs, but just the briefest wisp of a script propels the main action, which centers on getting the Smurfs around New York, looking for a way back home, and getting Harris into trouble.
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| Azrael the cat and Gargamel (Hank Azaria) |
But there were good things, too. Besides the undeniably cute rendered Smurfs, Neil Patrick Harris proved what an excellent physical comedian he is as he reacted to the tiny blue guys and one girl, who at one time even had him captured and trussed
a la Gulliver. Hank Azaria went all out, chewing any scenery in sight. If there wasn't anything left to chew, he built new scenery and started gnawing on it. This might have been annoying for some, but I happen to love Azaria and whatever over-the-top accent he is currently plying. Gargamel's mostly-CGI kitty cat, Azrael, had my 7 year-old daughter giggling throughout.
The Smurfs is undeniably silly, and disappears from your mind pretty quickly after you leave the theater. But I don't usually have long recap discussions after taking the kid to a matinee. It's nigh near impossible to not hum the theme song as you're heading for the parking lot and fishing for the car keys, too (La, la, la, la la ...). I can't help myself, however, wanting to encourage my daughter to hone her own critical faculties, so I asked her on the way out, "So what was your favorite part?" Depending on what movie we've just seen her answer can range from "Everything!" to, in the case of
The Smurfs, "When they stopped Gargamel's magic." Does Ebert know someone with a kid under 10 who could go with him to the movies? He might enjoy them more.
, The Pajama Game
and My Fair Lady
. When she would get nostalgic and put on one of those records, I would read the lyrics on the back of the album sleeve and try to sing along. I grew up listening to those songs and growing to love them. I probably know the Rex Harrison/Julie Andrews cast recording of My Fair Lady by heart.
and my favorite, Ella Fitzgerald singing songs by Rodgers and Hart
. I suspect these records may have been some of my parents' make-out music. The other day, when my mom was wondering what the agenda was for the day — actually, what was the day of the week — I couldn't help but hear Ella's voice in my ear, "I didn't now what time it was ..."
