LogFAQs > #906860326

14. Smurfs: The Lost Village

Karo: 4
Inviso: 4
Scarlet: 13
Charon: 14
Red: 14
Johnbobb: 18
JONA: 20
Stifled: 21
Genny: 21
Snake: 22

Total Score: 151

Karo: This new CGI movie is an attempt to patch up the damage hollywood has done to the franchise in recent years, and for the most part it succeeds at this task. It is refreshing to see the smurfs cute again, rather then as hideous little blue orcs.
Basically the story is Smurfette is feeling depressed that unlike the other smurfs she has no special trait or talent other than 'being a girl'. A series of events leads her to find another all-female village of smurfs thus solving the mystery of smurf reproduction at last. Cue a generic journey and some generic Gargamel hijinks and thats the whole film.
Despite the generally one-note characterization of the little blue guys, the were some pretty funny bits of dialogue in places. However, the movie was as its best when it good-naturedly made fun of the franchise, and it is a shame it did not go further down that path then it did.
The result is something charming and inoffensive, but is just your standard mid-tier CGI movie that follows a safe formula pretty much by the numbers. It almost seems as if they were so afraid creating an eldritch abomination in the vein of the two live-action movies that they took almost no risks whatsoever this time around.

Inviso: You know, there are movies on these lists that really surprise you because they turn out decent when they really have no business doing so. Animation 2, that movie was Trolls. This list? Smurfs: The Lost Village. Here I was, expecting some stupid kids movie based on an existing property, and yet Smurfs managed to intrigue me. Going into this, my only knowledge of the Smurfs was the basic concept that the Smurfs are this little race of blue guys, and Smurfette is the one girl among them. Lo and behold, Smurfette is the main character of the story, trying to find her place in a world where she doesnt feel unique or special outside of her gender (a common criticism of old school kids show casts). And the movie is interesting because of this. Its a LITTLE formulaic, but it kept me intrigued and kept Smurfette at the forefront without overindulging in the side characters. And as a result, it managed to elicit a genuine emotional reaction from me at the ending. So Id say thats a win for this movie.

Scarlet: You have to wonder why Karo thought including this sequel to a live-action/animation hybrid film on this list was a good idea or even why it was worthy of the time of Gauntlet Crew. Especially when you slowly come to the sad realization that every major voice in the film is clearly only in it for a paycheck. Every line is delivered with a definitive note of sad resignation, passionlessly floating like disembodied ghosts through a world of almost-but-not-quite magic. Possibly its because this movie feels lazily phoned-in throughout. In fact, its so lazy that I imagine they didnt include Lazy Smurf because they murdered him and used his blood to pen the script instead of ink in order to truly capture the essence of laziness embodied here.
Rating: 26/100

Charon: Extremely impressive, visually speaking at least. From a story standpoint, it's not bad either really. I was interested to know they kept with Smurfette's comic storyline origin story but I thought the big reveal of the lost village itself could have been more exciting. Discovering it should have been a climax, but it felt like the movie was more interesting before they did. Mostly for the fact that Smurfette is the only girl initially and she was a creation, but these other female smurfs are not apparently. More backstory could have been useful. I did end up liking the main cast however, which was interesting since I didn't think the 3 that were picked to be that along with Smurfette were the correct choices.
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all going according to the plan of BKSheikah this time...