The Smurf's Triumphant return!

[Drtooth]

One film that I'm on the fence about is "Hop". Sure, the initial pitch looks like crap-on-a-stick, but the ad made me giggle in parts. Maybe that's Russell Brand's doing as the voice of this bunny or the obnoxious fact that he poops jellybeans. That should have annoyed me but didn't! I think it's because the film is by the makers of "Despicable Me" who have traded in the goggled alien minions with yellow baby chick minions.

I didn't much care for Hop when it was just a teaser with a bunny on the drums, but I said, I'll give it a shot after the next trailer. Now, I like the idea of an Easter Bunny who winds up screwing up and having a nasty secondary character ruin the holiday... but then again, that's the plot of the Rankin Bass special "Here comes Peter Cottontail." Had this been an entirely CGI film, I'd give it some stock, but it takes a detour into "The Chipmunks was a surprise hit" land... and I betchya half to 90% of the action takes place with the generic dude he crashes with and his generic love interest. Just like Chipmunks and Garfield and Yogi Bear... at least this time they aren't ruining a perfectly good authoritarian nerd by making them an "aw shucks" lovable lug. I HATE lovable lugs. The pooping Jelly beans bit was insanely immature. What is it with Tim Hill and devouring fecal matter? I'm surprised he didn't rewrite the script so Gonzo got his message in Poopy'O's.

As for the Chipmunks sequel... well, I'm shocked they found a director WORSE than Tim Hill for one. it had some great concepts with the Chipettes and having the Chipmunks go to school... but half the other concepts were absolute fail. I said it a hundred times, do we REALLY give a crap about Dave's loser nephew? Did we really need another forced lovable lug trying to get some generic girl? What's with these kinds of movies and unmotivated love stories with Mary Sues? And as I've said every time I brought this movie up... there was NO call for Nascar's mole or the multiple tie ins to Meerkat Manor.

For the record... Speed Racer I give credit for at least WATCHING the series and knowing the character's names and core personality traits. At least the Mach Go didn't have a sassy African American comedian voice, like they felt they HAAAAD to do with Gadget. You know what the worst part about that was? The sassy comedian Gadgetmobile was retconned for 2 DTV movies (written a million times better than this film was). Thankfully it didn't resurface in Gadget and the Gadgetinis. But those movies really hurt Gadget as a franchise. And Airbender only went to prove how sucktastic and lucky M. Night Scooby-Doo was as a director. Had they given the job to someone competent, it would have been a far more enjoyable film. Though I still say it resembled Harmony Gold buying up the series and dubbing it into one movie.

Though I still state, there is NO CALL for the Smurfs to have to go to New York City in mundane times to do mundane things and act shocked that those things exist, like every movie that ever did that. Only time it worked (and barely) was Fat Albert. And that's only because the movie turned into a sweet tribute to the kids Cosby based the comedy routines on.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Of the Looney Tunes movies, I do like "Space Jam" but I can't say I'm real fond of "Back in Action"- it could because I watched at some odd hour of the morning when I was barely awake and so remember very little of it.
Even so, I don't recall it being nearly as good as "Space Jam".
And for cartoons to live action movies, there are few that I have enjoyed. I like "The Flinstones" movies for the most part- though there are some things that are definitely messed up. (For one, there was absolutely no reason to have any cursing in the first one- other than the obvious one, to get that "PG" rating so older kids would watch and bring in more money. And of course, Halle Berry's outfits were kinda on the skimpy side, to say the least.)
The "Scooby-Doo" movies were horrible for the most part, but I liked the second one somewhat just to see the classic villians come to life- but otherwise, I didn't care for it. The direct-to-video movies are WAY better. I really love those- they were much truer to Scooby-Doo and captured it better. (I love the live action montage of classic scenes from the intros to "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?" and "What's New, Scooby-Doo?" at the end of the first one.)
I like "Richie Rich" really well- but then I've never really read much of his comics, so I don't have a lot to compare it to- but Macualay Culkin worked better than I might have thought at first.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

And I really loved "Fat Albert"- I'm so glad Bill Cosby did it right and kept it the clean movie it should be with a good message.

 

[Drtooth]

Of the Looney Tunes movies, I do like "Space Jam" but I can't say I'm real fond of "Back in Action"- it could because I watched at some odd hour of the morning when I was barely awake and so remember very little of it.

Looney Tunes BIA could have been a much better movie, but the studio heads monkeyed around with it... they cut a Yakko, Wakko, and Dot cameo (which ticked me off), they forced a Scooby cameo (which I rather liked, but it was marketing for the second, BETTER movie), and over all, changed a lot of the stuff that WOULD have been funnier or worked better... the ending was changed, the human character's stole the show (and not in a good way... they almost stole it at knife point), and over all, I wish all the original scenes were completed so we could demand a Donner Cut of the original film. I really dislike how they had a prime opportunity to mock how hard it was to bring the Batman franchise back up (the film originally was to open with an insincerely dark superhero version of the LT character's, and Elmer Fudd dies, causing one exec to say "You can't kill off Elmer Fudd!") but opted for a Duck Season/Wabbit Season rehash.

All and all, I liked the film, but too many opportunities were blown, it flopped against some really bad competition, and it caused WB to drop all these great LT plans like they were hot and replace everything with that terrible Loonatics crap.

And I really loved "Fat Albert"- I'm so glad Bill Cosby did it right and kept it the clean movie it should be with a good message.

I still wonder how bad Forrest Whittaker's version was for Bill to say, "Zippadda Zappada with the violence and the sex! I'ma gonna go make the film myself a Haw HAw HAW!"

But one of the original Smurf's movie passes was the same exact plot... a girl that can't fit in cries the Smurfs to life. Now, it worked on Fat Albert because the show was all about child problems and problem solving... and they nicely tied it in to being equivalent to the ghost of the kid he based the stand up routine on helping out his niece... all the while with that tear jerker ending with the kids (supposedly) who the show/comedy routine was based on. Smurfs? Doesn't work that way. Sure, there were a few examples of them helping out sad people (Tis the Season to be Smurfy), but that was only a result of it being Americanized and cuted down to an extent (the original was a lot closer to Asterix... the Smurfs didn't get along quite as well as us Americans remember, and they REALLY hated Brainy)... but more often they just ran from Gargamel and got caught up with weird magic. And it only had them travel through time during that last season, which even Smurf fans disliked, which was clearly a gimmick to keep the show going.

Still, I might still see this... THEN I can really complain. Hey, I broke down and saw Yogi. But this is the last one.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Nice comparison of The Smurfs to Asterix- the Smurfs definitely have some similarities with Uderzo's great line of comics.
Brainy is essentially the Cacophonix of the Smurfs world.

 

[Drtooth]

Exactly, though the Smurfs did come first... so technically, Asterix did see some inspiration in the Smurfs comics.

But they were much closer to that kind of humor and style of art than the American produced cartoons lead on. Even with episodes based off comic stories, there were quite a few changes.

King Smurf, for example. Brainy became the dictator in the cartoon series, where a generic one did in the comics... leaving Brainy to try to become a martyr and have the rest of the Smurfs think him a hero and try to rescue him...

He was stuck in a dungeon for days while no one noticed.

 

[Slackbot]

Brainy is essentially the Cacofonix of the Smurfs world.

Brainy and Harmony could share that title.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Haha- yep. Can't forget Harmony.

 

[Redsonga]

*Sits and waits for more DVDs of the 80's series*

 

[BoomerangFish]

I loved the Smurfs as a kid and it's one of the few things I can watch today that doesn't irk me

Love Vanity SMurf... hilarious... Grouchy and Harmony are favourites as well. I sure hope the movie is good.