Smurfs: O Grande Filme

When I first encountered them on Saturday-morning television as a kid, the Smurfs cartoons struck me as inane, inert and innocuous, and the passage of 40-plus years has not made them seem any more ane, ert, or nocuous.

Plainly said, Smurfs just never becomes truly engaging as an overall story for young viewers.

For the most part, "Smurfs" hews to the textbook silliness of CGI-generated action and attitude humor, only this time so needlessly zigging and zagging it barely has time to convincingly sell its ultimate message of strength in togetherness.

There's nothing smurfy about Smurfs.

Caught between its cynical approaches to bygone zeitgeists, Smurfs can't decide how it wants to sell out.

I Smurf-ing loathed it.

Cue in a makes-no-sense adventure in which the Smurfs slide through various multiverses like superheroes.

When the credits rolled on this animated bore, I felt like a Smurfing fool for getting my hopes up. I wanted to kick my own Smurf.

You can almost feel IP-rights pressures animating the entire enterprise. See, there are other Smurf names out there. What about Corporate Mandate Smurf?

Smurfs rushes toward a finale so generic it could have been lifted from a variety of blockbusters over recent years.

It's refreshing to see children's animation makers use surrealism, instead of winking pop-culture references, to charm adults.

True, but never quite weird enough. "Smurfs" may be all over the multiverse, but it doesn't land anywhere worth writing home about.

Every few scenes, there's a chuckle-worthy bon mot or sight gag, or the animation style will alter radically for some plot-driven reason, but there's far too much downtime between Smurfs' sporadic delights.

There is plenty to satisfy the long-time fans, including the usual cuddly themes and replacement of various words with "Smurf."

A brand refresh aimed squarely at Gen Alpha and their Spotify-loving parents. On that front, it largely succeeds. It's fun, chaotic and occasionally touching.

An odyssey that-weird characterizations notwithstanding-is tiresomely unexceptional.

Can any sequence in this movie be strictly described as "normal"?

Somehow, in a movie about finding your niche, the Smurfs are more generic and indistinguishable than ever.

It's directed by Chris Miller, who also voices Grouchy Smurf. Watching the movie makes it easy to understand why he chose that character.

Its pastiche of Into the Spider-Verse is revealed to be nothing more than window dressing.