Smurfs (2025) Review: When a Studio Smurfs Up Animation to Their Smurfest Low Possible
Title: Smurfs (2025)
Director: Chris Miller
Based on: The Smurfs by Peyo
Release Date: July 18, 2025
An animated film, like this one, was so bullied by the internet that its reputation is what it gets. Last year, Paramount had the best year in animated movies, especially with IF (honestly) and Sonic the Hedgehog 3. It looks like they are messing up right now. Today, we will talk about the new Smurfs movie, Paramount's recent reboot of the iconic comics by Peyo. Set against a cheap $58 million budget, the movie flopped in the box office with $106 million gross worldwide. It mostly gained negative reviews from critics for its disjointed story, acting performances, and terrible songs. In slight opposition, audiences were mixed by praising nostalgia, but they agreed that the story was not that good. To sheer disappointment, Smurfs is smurfing garbage that tries to pander to the kids, even if Rihanna can't even do anything blue.
Summary
"When evil wizards Razamel and Gargamel take Papa Smurf, the Smurfs embark on a mission to the real world to save him. With help from some new friends, they must discover what defines their destiny to save the universe." - Google
Reasons
For trying to stick to the Hollywood formula, Smurfs has the bad spells of unoriginal story, "cool" humor, and real-world interaction. Instead of making a fresh narrative, it decides to retell the 2011 film all over again, except worse. It's taking ideas from Trolls, The Emoji Movie, Inside Out, UglyDolls, and any other animated movie from the 2010s. Why can't the Smurfs go to Razamel's castle without the multiverse gimmick? Other than the story, the humor is purely unfunny for both kids and adults alike. Many of the jokes either rely on pop culture references, the word "Smurf," or easy gags. Even young kids are not going to laugh because they know they deserve better. Just like with the multiverse, the real-world interactions are exactly useless. Look at IF. Look at the Sonic the Hedgehog movies. Look at The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Those are examples of Paramount movies that put their live-action animation interactions to use. In this movie, the mission involves the live-action world as a marketing stunt. Additionally, the interactions badly coincide with the lore because there are already animated humans in the universe, and that means it could have been a full-on animated movie at this point.
The other bad spells of Smurfs are the shallow characters, mismatched voice performances, and the terrible soundtrack. Every character in this movie has a one-note stereotype that makes them "unique." Smurfette is the cool heroine, No Name is the insecure hero, Papa Smurf is the elderly plot device, Ken is the long-lost brother, Razamel and Gargamel are the villains, Mama Poot is pointless, and the other Smurfs are barely distinguishable. Be lucky that Influencer Smurf was cut thanks to the allegations. Thanks to butchering our characters, the voice performances are laughably that bad. It turns out hiring Rihanna as Smurfette, James Corden as No Name, and all those other A-list actors was just a push for money. Plus, you can hear that the actors are just reading the script with little to no enthusiasm. The final thing that is bad is the preachy soundtrack. Again, Rihanna was only there for money, and it means that she needs songs in this movie. Yes, it is a musical, but the songs are just there to distract the kids.
Smurfs is a terrible movie, but the only magical things about it are the decent animation and the fair climax. In its Spider-Verse approach, it has a CGI storybook feel with 2D elements and speech boxes, which causes the animation to be styled in a similar fashion to The Bad Guys. I'm sorry to spoil things, but in one of the multiverse sequences, the different styles of animation can get some props. Finally, at the bare minimum, the climax is pretty exciting. It never even manages to be anticlimactic by making Razamel use new ideas, right until No Name gains his identity.
Conclusion
To wrap this review up like a burrito, Smurfs is a movie that smurfs up a popular IP with little to no recognition in the 2020s decade. It's tragic, because Paramount made IF and Sonic the Hedgehog 3 last year, and it's just now that they made a terrible movie. If you mix an unoriginal story, pandering humor, and random celebrity voices into one recipe, then people would protest. Again, be thankful that Influencer Smurf is not there anymore. For my recommendation, definitely skip this film. The two hybrids from Paramount last year are a million times superior to the 2010s "cool-and-hip" Smurfs.
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