The Smurfs – An average fare which disappoints

The Smurfs – An average fare which disappoints

The Smurfs is an American 3D family film based on the popular comic book series, The Smurfs, by Peyo and on the 1980’s animated series. It hit the big screens on July 29, 2011 and reached Pakistani theatres in fall.

When the evil wizard Gargamel, starred by Hank Azaria, chases the Smurfs out of their home, they tumble from their magical world and into ours. They reached the middle of the Central Park and needs to find a way back to their home. The story revolves around five Smurfs, Papa Smurf voiced by Jonathan Winters, Gutsy voiced by Alan Cumming, Smurfette voiced by Katy Perry, Brainy voiced by Fred Armisen and Clumsy voiced by Anton Yelchin.

Papa Smurf learns Clumsy would be responsible for letting the wizard into their village and despite putting all efforts to stop what he foresaw, the Wizard destroys their town. Stuck in the earth, they befriends with a couple in order to stay safe from the wizard who follows them into our world.

Producer Jordan Kremer sent letter to Lafig Belgium in 1997 to license the Smurfs. In the following year, Colombia Pictures and Sony Pictures Animations obtain rights from them. The current Smurf project was started with Sony during a conversation with the CEO Michael Lynton who grew up watching the little blue guys. Kremer said, “He relished them as I do and suggested that it should be a live-action/CG film. Amy Pascal felt equally that there was potentially a series of films in the making.”

It was originally scheduled for release in December last year but was pushed to July this year in order to avoid competition with Yogi Bear and Tron: Legacy. Its marketing partners promoted the movie through McDonald’s Happy Meals and Post Foods brand Cereal.  The DVD and Blu-ray Disc are scheduled to release at the end of this year accompanied with an all new 22-minute animated short film.

Regardless of a good story line and great box office reception which led the announcement of a sequel, the flick generally received negative reviews. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes states that 24 percent of 106 critics gave an average rating of four out of ten.

The site stated, “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.”

Overall, it is an average experience which has disappointed some of the SMURFS fans round the world.

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Posted by Awais Ahmed on Oct 26 2011. Filed under Entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry