The Smurfs

The Smurfs is a 2011 American 3D live-action/computer-animated comedy film loosely based on The Smurfs comic book series of the same name created by the Belgian comics artist Peyo and the 1980s animated TV series it spawned.

It was directed by Raja Gosnell and stars Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays and Sofía Vergara, with Jonathan Winters and Katy Perry as the voices of Papa Smurf and Smurfette. It is the first CGI/live-action hybrid film produced by mh:greatestmovies:Sony Pictures Animation and in The Smurfs duology. During early production, the film was known as The Smurfs Movie. The film had its worldwide premiere on June 16, 2011, in Júzcar, a small village in Spain, and released on July 29, 2011 by Columbia Pictures.

A sequel, titled The Smurfs 2, was released on July 31, 2013, then a third movie which was a fully animated reboot entitled mh:greatestmovies:Smurfs: The Lost Village released in April 2017 and in March 25 of 2017 in Georgia.

Plot
Evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) has plagued the happy, peaceful Smurfs for a very long time. Finally, he succeeds in chasing the little blue people from their village and through a magic portal -- which transports them to Manhattan and into the life of ad executive Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris). Only three apples high and lost in the Big Apple, the Smurfs (Jonathan Winters, Alan Cumming, Katy Perry) must find a way back to their world before Gargamel tracks them down.

Why It Sucks

 * 1) Very poor grasp of the source material. For instance, in the source material, the stories take place in a forest somewhere in Europe during Medieval times, but even though the beginning does still take place in the forest where the Smurfs live, most of the scenes in this movie afterwards take place in New York City during the present day instead.
 * 2) Having the Smurfs transported to New York City makes no sense and it would’ve made more sense if is they were transported to a Belgium city like Brussels considering that the Smurfs were originally Belgium creation.
 * 3) * The movie can also mislead viewers who haven’t heard of the Smurfs before into thinking it’s an American creation when it is completely false.
 * 4) False advertising: Instead of being focused on the Smurfs who are the main characters and getting a fair amount of screen time, the film mainly focuses on Patrick Winslow (played by Neil Patrick Harris), who is an advertising executive coming to grips with being a father.
 * 5) Shameless product placements for Guitar Hero, PlayStation 3, UglyDolls, Google, FAO Schwarz, M&M's, LEGO, McDonald's, Hello Kitty, The Blue Man Group and etc.
 * 6) Many lines of dialogue overuse the "Smurf" word, which can get tedious after a while.
 * 7) The film's premise rips off of various films, most notably Alvin and the Chipmunks, mh:greatestmovies:Enchanted, Fat Albert and Masters of the Universe.
 * 8) * In fact, the scene where the Smurfs meets Patrick and Grace is very similar to the scene of Alvin and the Chipmunks where Dave meet The Chipmunks from the start.
 * 9) The movie also suffers from numerous plot holes.
 * 10) * Papa Smurf being afraid of onions for some unexplained reason.
 * 11) * The Smurfs being more surprised at the fact that Grace Winslow (played by Jayma Mays) is wearing different clothes other than her being pregnant.
 * 12) * When the Smurfs find a book of themselves in the library and finding Peyo (the creator of The Smurfs), so Peyo wrote a book of fictional creatures, yet not only do they exist in this film, nobody else seems to be aware of what they are.
 * 13) * Papa Smurf destroys Gargamel's dragon wand and threw it in a lake, but in the mid-credits scene, Gargamel still has the wand unbroken.
 * 14) * When the Smurfs were escaping Gargamel at one part, Papa Smurf stayed behind purposely to get captured, when he could’ve just escaped with the other Smurfs.
 * 15) Many poor attempts at humor throughout the entire film.
 * 16) *Lots of the jokes often rely on pop culture references, such as Smurfette making a rather unneeded to her voice actress, Katy Perry, by saying "I kissed a Smurf, and I liked it!", and the corner rap scene involving the Smurfs while Patrick is playing Guitar Hero.
 * 17) *Aside from pop-culture references, there are also some gross-out jokes, like the one infamous scene where Gargamel urinates in a bucket.
 * 18) Ugly, creepy, semi-realistic, bizarre, uncanny, and out of place character designs for the Smurfs due to the fact that the Smurfs are barely meant to look realistic.
 * 19) Many moments in the movie overuse the "la, la, la-la-la-la" song, which is super annoying and it can easily get on your nerves, especially since that the Smurfs never stop singing it. Patrick Winslow understandably gets annoyed by the song and tries to tell them to stop, but they all ignore him aside from Grouchy.
 * 20) There are some mean-spirited moments, such as a lot of Smurfs not inviting Clumsy to the Blue Moon dance and take him with them to find a book to send them home.
 * 21) The characters are quite predictable and cliche. For example, you know that Patrick Winslow is gonna start out hating and by the end of the film liking them, and sometimes you know Clumsy is going to have an arc about proving himself.
 * 22) Odile Angjelou was a huge Mary-Sue, she wants Patrick to focus on Anjelou.
 * 23) Sometimes it feels like a few moments that aren't suitable or appropriate for children, such as when Odile Angjelou's mother turned back into a younger woman after Gargamel turned her into one. It had a quick scene where her breast grew a little bigger and when she slapped her own rear after the spell was finally complete.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Despite the movie focusing more on Patrick Winslow, the title characters do get a great amount of focus.
 * 2) Despite some poor attempts at trying to be funny, there are still a handful of good humor:
 * 3) *Hank Azaria does a good job at playing as Gargamel and is admittedly quite hilarious as his performance for the character.
 * 4) *The only other funny line was when The Smurfs are going to bed and say "I miss all the other Smurfs", One says "I miss Vanity Smurf", another says "I miss Lazy Smurf", they are all agreeing, then one says "I don't miss Passive-Aggressive Smurf", and they all agree "he's really friendly but then you walk away feeling bad for some reason".
 * 5) *Another possible funny one would be whenever Gargamel would throw his cat Azrael somewhere and say "Azrael, are you dead?" and when Gargamel got hit by the bus and makes Azrael say "Are you dead?" with subtitles and laughing.
 * 6) *The Smurfs angrily singing the "la, la, la-la-la-la" song is actually quite amusing.
 * 7) Some parts of the film are faithful to the source material:
 * 8) *The beginning of the film still takes place in the same forest where the Smurfs live.
 * 9) *Although the "la, la, la-la-la-la" song is super annoying, it's a throwback to the original Smurfs theme song.
 * 10) *The way they used the creator of The Smurfs, Peyo, as a researcher for them was very clever, yet still hard to follow.
 * 11) *The part when the Smurfs found the original Belgium comic of them is very neat.
 * 12) It does something new with a cliché because usually in stories like this, only one person sees the creature(s) and everyone else thinks he/she is crazy and it's really refreshing that it was a couple.
 * 13) Some characteristics are done right:
 * 14) *Patrick Wislow and Grace are likable characters.
 * 15) *Clumsy Smurf is a likeable character. In fact, nearly many of the Smurfs are still quite likeable.
 * 16) *Gargamel is still an entertaining villain and Hank Azaria does a great job at playing as him, as mentioned earlier.
 * 17) *Gutsy Smurf is a good and interesting new Smurf character.
 * 18) The voice acting for the Smurfs and the acting for the live-action cast are at least decent. Neil Patrick Harris, Jayma Mays, Sofia Vergara did a very well job portraying humans is very interesting.
 * 19) Hank Azaria and Neil Patrick Harris do good performances, despite wasting their talents.
 * 20) Like any other Sony Pictures Animation movie, the CGI is great.
 * 21) Decent musical score by Heitor Pereira. Ready to Go is a great song.
 * 22) When Patrick stops the Smurfs singing "la, la, la-la-la-la", they try to hum it because they don't like him to hear it, which avoids them from coming across as mean-spirited.

Reception
The Smurfs received generally negative reviews from critics and audiences, who criticized the design of the titular characters, screenplay, humor and plot for its perceived lack of originality, perceived lack of fidelity to its source material and amount of product placement, and compared it unfavorably to Masters of the Universe, Fat Albert and particularly Enchanted, as well as Alvin and the Chipmunks, although the performances of Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays received some praise, alongside the music, production design, animation etc. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 21% of 117 critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 4.01/10. The site's critical consensus states, "The Smurfs assembles an undeniably talented cast of voice actors and live-action stars—then crushes them beneath a blue mound of lowest-common-denominator kiddie fare.". On Metacritic, the film has weighted a score of 30 out of 100, indicating, "generally unfavorable reviews," while IMDb has an average score of 5.4/10.

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Trivia

 * After five years of negotiations, Jordan Kerner bought the rights in 2002, and the film entered development with Paramount Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies, until Columbia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animation obtained the film rights in 2008.