What is the deal with the Smurfs? It’s hard to find anyone who is a genuine fan of the blue-skinned, mushroom-dwelling cartoon creatures — they are, arguably, the worst thing to come out of Belgium since King Leopold II — yet Smurf-based films and TV shows continue, relentlessly, to be made.

 

Now, by unpopular demand, they’re back. Following the advice of Justin Timberlake in The Social Network and dropping the ‘The’, this is another crack at the live-action/animated hybrid format established with 2011’s The Smurfs. It’s a tedious entry in a tedious series, with more than a whiff of corporate mandate about it.

The script, by Pam Brady (a writer on South Park ), at least shows initial glimmers of self-awareness, gently ribbing the Smurfs’ simplistic, characteristic-based naming convention (Brainy, Clumsy, Hefty) — with notable exceptions for Smurfette (whose chief characteristic, presumably, is ‘woman’) and, most bafflingly in this film, two Smurfs with regular-people names (Ken, Ron). Our hero is a character with no unique trait at all, the humiliatingly named No Name (voiced by James Corden).

So much here feels tired and unoriginal — especially a sequence through the multiverse seemingly lifted straight out of Inside Out.

 

A wiser, wittier film might have found an interesting angle for No Name’s identity crisis. Instead, we have James Corden singing an interminably earnest ballad about “trying to find a reason to be strong”, a sentiment we can sympathise with while watching this film. Yes, in addition to their signature Sing A Happy Song (which even the Smurfs themselves here acknowledge is annoying), there are songs in this one. Godspeed, parents.

A curious Smurf tradition holds that a pop star must voice Smurfette. As the prophecy decrees, Rihanna inherits the role from Demi Lovato and Katy Perry, lending the soundtrack two original numbers. She gives it a good go, but few of the celebrity voice actors here make much of an impression (save for the unmistakable drawl of Natasha Lyonne, voicing Mama Poot, the leader of the mischievous Snooterpoots).

 

The visuals are hardly much more cheering. Director Chris Miller opts for a very in-vogue-at-the-moment 2D/3D animation style, which only feels cheap and jarring, especially when the characters enter the live-action world. So much here feels tired and unoriginal — especially a sequence through the multiverse again seemingly lifted straight out of Inside Out.

 

Everything is derivative. The plot almost apologetically offers some nonsense about magic books which hold some kind of ill-defined, Infinity Stone-esque power in this universe. The most exciting new wrinkle it can manage is that Razamel, brother of the usual foe Gargamel (both voiced by JP Karliak), is the chief baddie here.  It’ll please fans of the Smurfs, I guess; it’s just not clear who exactly they are. Or if they even exist.

 

4/10 If you have kids, sure, see it.

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Boluwatife Adesina is a media writer and the helmer of the Downtown Review page. He’s probably in a cinema near you.