Smurfs

In the 2025 Smurfs movie, Papa Smurf is kidnapped by the evil wizard Gargamel’s even eviler brother Razamel, who is seeking a magical book that will allow him to control the world. Smurfette, voiced by Rihanna, and a team of Smurfs, including No Name, Ken, and Ron, go on a dimension-hopping adventure through the real world to rescue him. With the help of new friends like Mama Poot and a magical book named Jaunty, they confront the wizards and uncover secrets about their identities to save the universe.

Smurfs (2025) Review

Many modern screenwriters seem to believe that stuffing their films with every subplot from their brainstorming sessions is an adequate substitute for layered and cohesive storytelling that builds organically. They are wrong. However, when you consider that Smurfs screenwriter Pam Brady co-wrote alongside Trey Parker and Matt Stone on both the South Park series and movie, as well as Team America, and what strong proponents of storytelling via logical progression those two are, Smurf’s threadbare plot-weaving is particularly egregious.

                   

Smurfs (2025) is the narrative equivalent of dumping a bucket of Legos on the floor and calling the pile a boat. Without exaggeration, Pam and her team crapped out an average of one new plot/subplot every 9 minutes, and each with barely enough effort to be labeled “minimal” and even less artistry or creativity.

Yet, somehow, with ten or more flimsy stories unfolding simultaneously, Team Pam managed to squeeze in no fewer than four Smurf-themed Rihanna music videos/product placements throughout. However, director Chris Miller can’t even handle those. There’s a scene that takes place in a French discotheque, and it’s clear that no music or even a metronome was playing to help the extras keep a uniform rhythm. I wouldn’t be surprised if Miller told them all to think of their favorite dance song and let loose.

Not even the star-studded cast (B and C-listers) can do more with this disasterously bad script than phone it in, with one exception. The mentally ill trans activist JP Karliak, who voices Gargamel’s younger brother, and this film’s main villain, goes all out, delivering a dynamic performance that probably could have been a fun one with a script worth more than toilet paper and a director who wasn’t asleep during filming.

When you boil it down, Smurfs (2025) is a giant steaming pile of smurf that’s best scooped up and dumped in the trash bin.

PARENTAL NOTES

Smurf Me Where the Smurf Don’t Smurf

• There’s an entire scene built around substituting curse words for “Smurf.” It might go over the youngest heads, but it’s pretty overt.
  • “You don’t know Smurf about Smurf.”
  • “Stick a Smurf in it.”
  • “I think I Smurfed my pants.”
  • There’s more.
• There’s a turtle character who twice asks, “What the shell?”
• The movie concludes with Sound Effects Smurf bleeping out some significant curse words.
  • No Name Smurf suggests that his name should be Kick(bleep sound effect) Smurf. Smurfette asks, “Kick(bleep sound effect) Smurf?” He answers her with “You’re right. I don’t know what the (bleep sound effect) I was thinking. What? I said, ‘Smurf. ‘”

Bottoms Up

• Razamel’s henchman drinks tomato juice out of a martini glass (olives included) at the end of the film.

WOKE REPORT

Shemalé Smurf

• Women have been voicing juvenile male cartoon characters for a long time, but they’re meant to sound like children. This movie features two ostensibly grown male Smurfs, voiced by women who do not attempt to sound male in any way. One is Vanity Smurf, who, let’s face it, has always been a jab at the effeminate homosexual stereotype, and the other is List Smurf, an original creation for this movie.

  

  • Neither speaks more than twice in the entire film, and there’s no other indication in the film that either is trans, but I thought it worth mentioning. It’s also noteworthy that the U.K. version of the film features a flamboyantly gay male actor as the voice for Vanity.
    • Due to the complete ambiguity of this, I didn’t mark the Woke-O-Meter down
• Mentally ill trans activist JP Karliak voices the movie’s main villain. Some of you might remember that he played Morph in X-Men ‘97. However, unlike in that series, there’s no indication of this character’s sexuality. With this and the fact that you’d have to be told or look it up to know that the actor is off his rocker, it might be woke hiring practices but it doesn’t affect the wokeness of the movie, and I didn’t mark down the score for it.

You Go Girl, or Don’t

• Either through incompetence or by design, Smurfette never actually assumes the leadership role that the advertisements would have you believe. I would say that she’s helpful and encouraging, just like in the original, but otherwise, she defers to male Smurfs throughout the entire film. She never initiates any actions or takes control.
  • There’s a commercial for the movie before the movie that tries to convince you that it’s going to be great and special, and Rihanna makes a special note to tell us that she loves Smurfette because she’s a strong woman and a fierce leader, but it just ain’t true. I’d bet that this is how they convinced her to take the part. It wasn’t the money. The whole production budget was only $58 million, and the Barbados native is worth 17 times that much.
  • Nevertheless, if she was intended to be a girl boss, it failed. So, I didn’t ding the Woke-O-Meter for it.