Janky Smurfs
the latest iteration of the Belgian cartoon has no clue what it wants to be.
Smurfs
Director: Chris Miller • Writer: Pam Brady, based on the comics by Peyo
Starring [English]: Rihanna, James Corden, John Goodman, Nick Offerman, JP Karliak, Sandra Oh, Octavia Spencer
USA • 1hr 32mins
Opens Hong Kong July 17 • I
Grade: D+
Editorial bias alert: I will listen to or watch anything Rihanna does, at least once. When it comes to music, “Work” never gets tired, and I frequently mutter “Bitch better have my money,” under my breath when firing off invoices. I have three Fenty lipsticks. But this isn’t like being in the Beyhive. I’m not putting myself through Battleship, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets or even Ocean’s 8 again – though not all those Riri’s fault. It would be fair to say Rihanna does many, many things well and whenever the fuck she feels like it, and good on her for it. But movie things are not among them.
The new family adventure Smurfs – not to be confused with The Smurfs duology starring Neil Patrick Harris from the 2010s – was produced by Rihanna, who also stars as Smurfette and supplies a couple of new songs. Between running a beauty and fashion empire and starting a family with ASAP Rocky, she’s got no time for albums, so the pair of tracks here are going to have to tide you over. If you’re lucky, they’ll also lead you through the mire that is this movie, a confused, confusing and utterly baffling mess of a film that’s one part long-format music video and one part Trolls knock-off with no sense of purpose or identity.
As they say, ‘What the smurf?’
You can call Smurfs a sort of origin story, because it turns out Smurf Village is a hiding place where defender of goodness Papa Smurf (John Goodman) took a magic book in order to protect it from the evil council of wizards. Smurfs evidently have a low-key guardian of the galaxy thing going on, and when the shady Razamel (JP Karliak) and his henchperson Joel (Dan Levy) scoop Papa up in order to make him hand over the book, it’s up to Smurfette and No Name Smurf (James Corden, who refuses to just go away) to rescue him and save the universe. Because of course it is. No Name, for the record, is called such because he doesn’t have a “thing” yet – he’s not brainy, or vain, or strong, or worried or a girl. He’s seeking.
This rescue takes the Smurfs to Paris (?), where the animation mixes with live action but never once has the Smurfs interact on a meaningful level with their surroundings (same goes for a trek to the Outback and the Autobahn near Munich). Anyway Smurfette and No Name team up with Papa’s long lost brother Ken (Nick Offerman), Snooterpoot (what now?) leader Mama Poot (Natasha Lyonne) and Razamel’s aggrieved brother Gargamel (also Karliak) to spring Papa and stop the evil wizards from sucking all the good in the world out of it. Along the way the requsite message about self-determination and finding one’s place is woven among cheeseball jokes about LinkedIn (WTF?), podcasting gear, loopy ’70s AM radio song lyrics as dialogue and an over-reliance on surreal Smurf mythology that introduces Viking Smurf Ron (Kurt Russell), Papa and Ken’s brother. Or “brother”.
Like most lazy garbage of this ilk, Smurfs manages almost by accident to rustle up a few random funny moments – you’ll snort a semi-laugh or two – and roughly 30, maybe 45 seconds of creative animation ripped right from Into/Across the Spider-verse as Smurfette and No Name run through a series of alternative universes in claymation, line drawing, 8-bit and anime as they try to get home. But the multi-verse angle already feels old; we’ve grown weary of this as a trope. The songs are unremarkable and the Smurfs are still weird looking. Writer Pam Brady (co-scripter on Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken) leans heavily on familiar kid fare action but director Chris Miller (a DreamWorks regular, Puss in Boots) makes the slight 92 minutes feel like an eternity. An eternity set to that gawdawful La la… lalalala… La lala La Laaaah… song. Rihanna’s got little kids now, so kind of like John Krasinksi making IF, I guess she wants to show them what mom does, but in a form they can actually watch. Ms Fenty, may I suggest inclusive lingerie design?