Comedy, 103 Minutes, 2011
You know how every once in a while a movie comes along that looks really bad – horribly, terribly bad – but somehow manages to end up really good? How a movie can sometimes triumph over the shortcomings of its source material and become something special? Sometimes its writing that’s smarter than it needs to be; or an oddly perfect marriage of actor and role; or even just an infectious love of something that most people consider too silly to consider?
Well – this movie ain’t none of that.
This movie is the same pre-packaged, Hollywood-happiness that only requires some well-known faces (usually TV actors), some well-known voices (usually A-listers cajoled into “being sports about it”) and a willingness to rape the childhood memories of a generation. If the best aspects of this movie were somehow seamlessly merged with the very best aspects of “Marmaduke” (IMDB), “Garfield” (IMDB) and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” (IMDB) it would still be borderline retarded.
Do you know what happens in this movie? If you said “no” then you’ve lied because what happens in this movie is what happens in ALL of these movies. The Smurfs enter into the life of a kind-hearted but set-upon doofus and, despite all appearances that they’re crushing his soul under their oblivious tiny feet somehow end up making it better! Oh, and they spend time in New York City which includes all the gags that you’d expect from that.
I suppose if you have kids give this a watch – to be fair it’s not actually worse than most of the other tripe marketed to kids. My nine-year-old says that she enjoyed it (but didn’t ever laugh) and my lovely bride claims “it was okay”. So maybe I’m the jerk on this one. On the positive side, this does clearly bring us one-step closer to a live-action “Snorks” movie. No? How about “Thundarr the Barbarbian”? “Rainbow Brite”?
