Okay... I finally broke down and bothered to see this. it was a last minute decision, and pretty much same or similar consequences that got me to see Yogi Bear. And trust me, I take no pleasure saying what I'm about to say....
It wasn't
that bad. In fact, it was pretty decent overall, considering. I know, I know... I made the biggest stink about it, I wound up seeing it, and dare I say, I kinda liked it. Kinda... considering I had absolutely NO expectations, almost figuring this to be a torturous experience of masochistic endurance, and it turned out to be the highlight of a bad day with a very early start.
Not that there wasn't problems. Now, I'm going to give a semi-detailed review in several parts...
The Bad (might as well get this out of the way)
I still object to the Smurfs being smurfed into modern New York
, but... I have to say, it wasn't half as bad as I expected. plus, the concept of a little girl crying them to life was actually worse by comparison. I still can't abide some of the bad blue jokes (there's a LOT of them, including visual puns), the bathroom humor, the use of the word smurf as a euphemism for the F bomb
, and some of the genericness of the kid's movie aspect. Some of the Smurf dialogue was dodgy, and I didn't care too much for obvious voice actor jokes (A Wolfgang Puck voiced Smurf makes a joke about Frozen pizza, Katy Perry's I kissed a Girl and I liked it was mentioned for no apparent reason).
The Good
The human actors actually did a great job, especially Hank Azaria as Gargamel. I actually couldn't help laugh seeing him on screen. Heck, they could have made the entire movie about Gargamel in New York, and it would have been pretty fun. Two of the bathroom jokes unfortunately fall on him, but he manages to make them funny through his delivery. And the play between him and Azrael was pretty much the highlight of the movie. As far as the other humans go, they genuinely felt like they at least sort of wanted to be there, unlike Jason "no paycheck is worth this" Lee's cold, personality devoid Dave Seville. And while I hate random relationships between two human characters (Yogi Bear... yuck), they mercifully managed to have the human couple start out married, so lame courtship segments were thankfully out of this script. And I can't say enough about the opening Smurf village sequence. Too bad the movie didn't entirely take place there. And I have to disagree with frogboy's earlier review, honestly, I didn't care all that much for Clumsy's portrayal, but I felt Papa and Brainy were the best characters they sent to the real world. Also, while the movie does unfortunately have base in the cartoon series, it DOES mention the comics several times, as a series of chronicled events of mythical creatures. In fact, a spell incantation is in FRENCH! Thankfully, they weren't treated like cartoon characters like, say Bullwinkle or Fat Albert.
The ehh?
I don't know what to make of
Groundskeeper Gutsy Smurf. On the one hand, I like seein' me Scottish brethren (I'm like 1/4 or less Scott, but I count it anyway) in such cartoony stereotypes... but he was basically all kilt jokes. I REALLY wish Vanity Smurf joined them for the journey. In fact, a lot of the best Smurfs had like one line or less. Jokey, while his exploding presents were present, just should have been in more of the film. In fact, a LOT of stuff feels like it was edged out of the script. Neil's character's subplot fought over being henpecked by his designer boss and worries about being a father... seems like that was something that should have had a little more focus. I also would have liked to have seen more of Gargamel working at the makeup company... that seemed to peter out, and it was the BEST part about the modern setting. Plus, I really think they wanted to develop Smurfette more, mentioning her origin twice in the film... Also, I don't know what to make of Grouchy's love affair with the green M&M (!) or the fact that, yes... they HAD to make them rap... but it wasn't one of those explicit sex rap pieces that are apparently deemed safe for a kid's movie because they used it out of context 20 years after it became tame (I'm looking at YOU, I like Big Butts in Yogi Bear)... they used Run DMC's Walk this Way (which, frankly, I like enough as a song not to complain about this).
Now, to get to this question...
Question: Was there anybody who saw 'Smurfs,' who noticed if there was a Muppet trailer attached to it or not? Just curious, since it was #1 at the box office.
The theater I was at ALWAYS shows ONLY the Green with Envy one. Honestly, I think that's one of the stronger ones.
But here's the shock of shocks... the movie has random Muppet references. The SMURF movie has MUPPET references!
Mickey Muppet already pointed out the Elmo walkaround, BUT there's a sequence when they're in FAO Schwartz (easily the worst sequences in the movie are here, but thankfully short) and they chase Gargamel into... you guessed it, The MUPPET WHATNOT WORKSHOP and you see ALL the Muppet stuff in the background. SHOCK! I almost fell out of my seat! The irony... Sesame Street muppets and Muppet show characters present in the same movie... and it isn't even a Muppet one.
OVERALL:
There is a review that said all the worst segments are present in the trailer
. I agree 100% with that. The movie does want to have some heart, though the "edginess" gets in the way quite a bit. After seeing this, I can safely say, to my shock and surprise, between the two of them, Yogi Bear was the crap movie on multiple levels. Though, I shudder to call this really good, I'm going to be VERY generous with this because I'm in a good mood now... I give it a C-... a HIGH C-, but a C- none the less (lost points for the setting and some of the lesser Smurfy moments)... I enjoyed it MORE than Yogi to say the least, which I now chose to give a hard F (AN F, TURNER! HAHAHA AN F!), I liked it slightly better than the Chipmunks (because Neil Patrick Harris's performance > Jason Lee's "Why did I sign on to do this crap?")... but not as much as I enjoyed Speed Racer, The Flintsones, George of the Jungle or especially the underrated whipping boy, Popeye.
I can't say I really recommend it, but once it hits red box for a buck... well, there's worse things you can do with a buck. I am glad I saw it though... I didn't walk out with the emptiness and confusion I did when I saw Dumber than your Average Bear...
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