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Smurfs (2025)

Why do I do this to myself? Ok so a 42 man is not the target audience for this movie and I never really grew up watching the Smurfs so I don’t know how faithful the film is to the characters. The set up of the film is that Papa Smurf (John Goodman) has been taken by evil wizards and Smurfette (Rhianna) & No Name (James Corden) lead the group to try and find him. 

I didn't know that James Corden was going to be in it as Rhianna seems to have taken the marketing and had I known that Corden was in this then I may have had second thoughts about paying money to see this. He is irritating at the best of times but add singing to it and then it is 100 times worse. Rhianna can sing but act is a bit of a stretch. Together they are passable and mercifully there are only a few songs which seem to have been put in to pad the run time out as it comes to 92 minutes. 

There are things that I liked about this. First there were plenty of funny named Smurfs which indicate what their job is and I liked them but I thought Sound Effect Smurf was the best one. He had some of the funniest jokes in the entire film including when he bleeps No Name three times which makes it funny each time. 

The film starts in the Smurf world and it’s a sea of very bright animation. It doesn't get better when they get to the real world but at least it’s not as bright but that’s Paris for you. The animation might appeal to the target audience but I just found it generic and whilst things looked colourful it seemed to lack any warmth that we have come to expect from films like Toy Story or Shrek.

The best moment and the one that I found interesting was the different dimensions that they go through. Due to the fact that I am of a certain age, the clay universe as well as the hand drawn universe. Then there were the 8-bit and anime dimensions which were fun. Had the film had more of this then I would have liked it a lot more but I suppose the target audience would have hated that.

There were a couple of families in the screening I was in and the kids seemed to like it but I think the parents were not as interested. It’s harsh to try and rate it to some of the more grown up films but I thought that the story was fine, the villain was what it needed to be and the songs sung by James Corden were kept to a minimum. It just didn’t connect with me but as I said before, I’m not the target audience so what would I know. Whether this will lead to more will depend on how it does at the box office but given that there are Marvel and DC films out at the moment I don't think it will do as well but I think if you have young children then this might work for them

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