While it may have zipped passed the radar of most cinema goes, the first Smurfs movie actually made over $560 million worldwide, which is more than the likes of Monsters Inc., Despicable Me or Madagascar made during their theatrical runs. This amount of money is not be sniffed at, so it was inevitable that a sequel would be fast-tracked, and here we are less than two years later with The Smurfs 2. If you happen to be four years old, then this might just be the greatest movie ever made. For literally EVERYONE over that age, prepare yourselves…
We find villain Gargamel is now a world-famous magician currently headlining a show in Paris, and his magic is powered by the Smurf's… uhm… blue essence. But he's running out, so he sends in his two new faux-Smurfs, Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hakkus (J.B. Smoove), to bring Smurfette (Katy Perry) back into the real world and steal her new Smurf powers. But it turns out that Smurfette is questioning whether she belongs in Smurf World because everyone forgot her birthday (they didn't really, a surprise party is in the works, DOH!), so she might be only too happy to go along with Gargamel's plans. Meanwhile, the Smurfs recruit their human friends Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Glee's Jayma Mays) to find Smurfette, but Patrick's step-dad Victor (what the hell are you doing here, Brendan Glesson?) wants to tag along, and Patrick doesn't like him because he made him give up his parrot thirty years ago.
That's it in terms of plot, and it's all a very heavy-handed approach to telling kids "Hey, if you're adopted / have foster or step-parents, then that's totally okay!", but even that takes a back-seat to the CGI characters constantly falling over, into and off of stuff. It's difficult to get too annoyed at anything this innocent, but there is literally NOTHING here for any audience members above the age of 48 months.
Hank Azaria is obviously having a ball playing the OTT bad-guy, but he is the only shining light in this empty-headed, entirely unfunny kids film with a script littered with the likes of "Oh, Smurf!" and "Smurf-zactly!" and, perhaps most confusingly of all, "This was very smurfy!"
If you do have any extremely young'uns in your family, they'll probably love this, but make sure you bring them straight to the dentist afterwards. To everyone else, smurfin' avoid!
