The Smurfs 3D Adventure: What to Expect

In the same weekend that action flick “Cowboys & Aliens” and rom-com “Crazy, Stupid, Love” hit theaters, there is also something PG for the younger kids -I am of course talking about “The Smurfs” 3D adventure.

The film starts off innocently enough in Smurfland, where the Smurfs — tiny blue gnome-like creatures named after their archetypes (i.e. Lazy Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Papa Smurf, etc.) — skip and climb trees and sing blithely.  The evil wizard Gargamel (played by Hank Azaria) chases the Smurfs through a digital reality portal, transporting them from fantasy Smurfland to real-life Central Park in New York City.  This crossing over is not entirely new — it has been done before in other PG films such as “Enchanted” as well as “Alvin & the Chipmunks.”

The Smurfs eventually come across a harried corporate ad man (Neil Patrick Harris) and his doe-eyed wife (Jayma Mays), who help them escape Gargamel and his comical sidekick cat and help the Smurfs find their way back to their village, in the process overcoming their own dilemma about having children.

Matched with the classic old-school cartoon characters from the 1980s, the movie seems like a good idea.  However, as film critic Ed Symkus said, there were simply too many cooks.  “Four different writers, all trying to get their own ideas of what will work into the script.  We need to make a kids movie.  We need to make a movie adults will watch,  We need to tie it all together for kids and adults.”  Perhaps if the writers could have collectively agreed to focus on the Smurfs instead of the viewers, the rest would have fallen into place.

So what can viewers expect from the 86-minute 3D adventure?

Answer: A nice virtual tour of New York city, mediocre puns involving the word “smurf” (i.e. “smurftamistic” and “pessasmurftic” and similar pearls of smurfdom), and lots of “la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.”  To borrow one of the film’s taglines, “Smurf happens”, but not much else.

Images  by victoria white2010 and david_shankbone via Flickr.