Featuring The Voices Of: Rihanna, John Goodman, James Corden, Nick Offerman, Natasha Lyonne, Dan Levy, Hannah Waddingham, JP Karlilk, Amy Sedaris, Sandra oh, Jimmy Kimmel, Octavia Spencer, Nick Kroll, Alex Winter, Maya Erskin, Billie Lourd, Kurt Russell, Marshmallow

Written By:Pam Brady, based on characters created in The Smurfs

Directed By: Chris Miller

Studio: Paramount

Release Year: 2025

Runtime: 89 minutes

Audio Description Produced By:

Written By:

Narrated By:

what Is it?: An abomination. Oh, sorry, I mean… a very creative reinvention of conceptually what the Smurfs are. in this world, there are four evil sorcerers, and four books of spells, but some guardians steal one of the books, and Papa Smurf ends up hiding the book in Smurf Village. After an event reveals their location, everything the Smurfs have come to know is thrown into chaos when Papa Smurf is sucked into oblivion telling them they need to find Ken. So, led by Smurfette and No Name Smurf, the ragtag group tries to evade being double penetrated by Razamel AND Gargamel, while protecting the book, and hunting down someone named Ken. A misguided attempt to make this a musical results in two solos for Corden and Rihanna, and a dance off at the end.

What Works: Actually, casting. theoretically,John Goodman is a solid Papa Smurf. I also would have accepted Nick Offerman. So, some of the voice cast, simply being chosen for the film, was wise. I can’t say any of the voice talent contributed to the failure of the film, but some were underutilized to be sure. Also, runtime. At least it isn’t long.

We do seem to keep rebooting things, and for every Mutant Mayhem that brings the right kind of updated flavor, we get adaptations that seemingly throw the source material in the trash. Transformers One might have tried to be faithful, but The Garfield Movie certainly wasn’t. Hopefully,they consider the idea that perhaps the reason people liked things to begin with had to do with some quality in the original product. Not everything needs an Instagram filter to survive.

What Doesn’t Work: I know there was the animated Smurfs movie that started it all, which even being older is still far better. then, they did the live-action hybrid Smurfs and its sequel, with stars like Katy Perry and Neil Patrick Harris. Those are typically maligned. Those two films are both better than this. The most recent animated attempt at a reboot, back in 2017, also is way better than this. This is the darkest timeline. it feels like someone was assigned to reboot Smurfs, but only had a passing knowledge of what they were and did no research. Either that, or it was handed to the one person who hated every Smurf endeavor including the series that started it all, and the hot take was that they could save it.

Why are they protecting a book of spells that sounds suspiciously like the book in Wicked? Why do they need to find Ken? Why aren’t there more Smurfs defined by their names, like Brainy Smurf, Brawny Smurf, or Vanity Smurf? I know some did make a brief appearance, but the movie sidelines them as much as possible. Even Gargamel is a secondary villain. And didn’t previous versions of Gargamel want to eat or extract things from the Smurfs? Gargamel just wants to squash them. An evil wizard reduced to a stomping oaf. Instead, his “smarter’ brother is the main villain, and instead of having a cool sidekick like an evil cat, he’s got some intern named Joel.

I wanted to like this, I really did. I went in thinking I’d be the one critic who liked it, because I’m far more forgiving of most of these films. I enjoyed the previous Smurfs films, and most of the Alvin and the Chipmunks films. If you wanted to update this for 2025, my interpretation is that you think kids today are incapable of liking the Smurfs without radical changes, or you think kids today are too stupid to not follow a plot that isn’t dripping with influencer vibes.

If you asked Chat GBT to make you a Smurfs film, this is what you would get.

The Audio description: When I was paying attention, the audio description was pretty good. But it also pointed out some really idiotic things that just kept making the film worse, like the dancing book. Why and how is the book dancing? is the fucking pagemaster here? I don’t have a problem with this track. It was lovely, but the film is so silly it can’t help but point out things actually happening, that make no sense whatsoever. If you think it’s funny that Smurfette breaks into a place by using a food delivery service, and the joke is that she ate all the fries. And she says the key to food delivery is to tip ahead of time because if you don’t the delivery driver will lick all of your food… what are we even doing? Who was this movie made for?

You Might Like It If: You don’t watch it, and you instead imagine the possibilities. Keep it in your mind as something that might have been. Or, if you have zero knowledge of the Smurfs. If you’ve never seen or heard of them before, and wouldn’t know or be able to compare it.

You Might Hate This If: You actually like the Smurfs.

Final Thoughts: A reboot of a franchise that seems to be running as far away from the source material and previous iterations as fast as possible, as if there was never any merit to The Smurfs at all. It is instead made by and for the Gargamel’s of the world, who seek only to destroy the whole Smurfing thing.

Rotten: 3.4/10