The Smurfs 2

You’re making it look hard, but making a good “Smurfs” movie shouldn't be. Just pull from the original comic books by Belgian comic artist Peyo instead of trying to come up with something original and failing completely. It’s baffling to see a film that uses it’s own characters this poorly. “The Smurfs 2” has no idea what it’s doing.

Following the events of the first film, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) has become a world-renowned magician. Seeking to expand his power, he has created “The Naughties”, two wannabe Smurfs that unfortunately, lack the blue essence that power his wand. After these creatures (voiced by Christina Ricci and J. B. Smoove) kidnap Smurfette (Katy Perry) and bring her to France, Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters), Vanity Smurf (John Oliver), Grouchy Smurf (George Lopez) and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) come to her rescue.

I decided to omit Nail Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays, who reprise their roles as Patrick and Grace from the first film, in my synopsis because I wish they weren’t in this movie. There’s no reason for them to be. Like the first time around, you won’t care about their actions, particularly not when Patrick’s father, Victor (Brendan Gleeson) arrives. I get what they’re doing; there are parallels between the human story and the Smurfs'. Smurfette wonders if she belongs in Smurf Village, or with Gargamel because her memory sucks and she can’t remember that he’s an evil wizard, while Patrick proves himself to be a petulant 40-year-old child that is still hung up on the fact that he has a stepfather. You won’t care or be kept in suspense, and I doubt your children will either.

"Smurfs 2" is like a student who hasn’t finished the final chapter of a book and is desperately killing time, hoping for the bell to ring so he won’t have time to answer his teacher's questions. There is no reason, NONE! For any of the non-Smurf characters (save Gargamel and his cat Azrael, voiced by Frank Welker) to be in this film. They do little, except provide the Smurfs with a way to get to Paris from New York, and retrieve a few pieces of information that the Smurf’s could’ve gotten themselves with a quick re-write. If at least the film was funny, but it isn’t. Part of it is due to the Smurfs’ creepy appearance, like some demented internet artist who thought “Smurfs are magical forest monsters, right? Maybe they should look the part”. Mostly, it’s the fact that we’ve seen all of these jokes before. Yes, yes “Oh My Smurf! ”, “hit him in the smurfberries”… anything else?

If you do wish to subject yourself to “Smurfs 2”, you might as well stay around for the end credit scenes. But I don’t recommend that you do. See the movie that is. (On Netflix, April 15, 2017)