I declare WAR on the writers of this unpolished work. The success of The Smurfs is due to the parents of this generation who are sharing their return to eighties nostalgia and grasping an innocent moment of their youth. Although The Smurfs live-action film is soft hearted with a nice theme (A dedicated father would go through any lengths to protect his family) and sub theme (Once in a Blue Moon), the film has weak, generic, and writing flaws that make the narrative feel loose and a bit unpolished. Tightening and polishing the script while giving it another revision would have created a classic and a solid boot to the live-action franchise, but the collaboration of the two writing groups felt indecisive. The Smurfs had too many cooks in the kitchen which gave rise to a bland flavored flick. The Smurfs was directed by Raja Gosnell (Beverly Hills Chihuahua, Big Momma’s House, Scooby Doo 1&2, and Home Alone 3) and the screenplay was written by J. David Stem (Shrek 2), David N. Weiss (Shrek 2), Jay Scherick (Zookeeper), and David Ronn (Zookeeper).
The film opens up with a group of Smurfs gathering Smurf-berries from the forest while the rest of the Smurfs are preparing for the Blue Moon Festival. The Smurfs work really hard in their socialist commune known as the Smurfs Village, where they live in their iconographic mushroom architecture, singing their iconographic theme song, and wearing their iconographic Phrygian white caps and white trousers while Papa Smurf (Jonathon Winters) wears his red Phrygian cap and trousers. The Smurfs’ vocation is solely based by their archetypal personality. Jokey Smurf (Paul Reubens) works on comedic gags and pranks, Chef Smurf (Wolfgang Puck) works on the culinary delights, Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen) is too smart for his own good, and etc.… all the while they get paid in Smurf-berries no matter how hard or how little work they do.
For example, Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) is told to stay behind or not to participate in any of the Smurfs’ activities; for fear that he will innocently mess it up or cause some sort of raucous, but will he earn an equal amount of Smurf-berries like everyone else, ergo the Marxist sociopolitical model. Outside of the Smurfs’ Village is a society governed by medieval monarchy in a European Valley.
After performing a ritual, Papa Smurf foresees a disastrous premonition as he gazes in his cauldron that involves Clumsy and Gargamel (Hank Azaria). The premonition really worries Papa Smurf, but he does not want to alarm the other Smurfs and he pretends not to be bothered by it, and with that being said, he tells Clumsy not to go into the forest (Spoiler alert). Yes, you guessed it; Clumsy goes into the forest and leads Gargamel to the esoteric Smurfs’ Village. Where Gargamel throws Azrael (Frank Welker) through a mirrored guise of the forest just shortly after Clumsy runs through it, and begins to wreak havoc on the village as soon as he follows Azrael, destroying the mushroom houses to wrap his soiled fingers around these innocent hardworking apparitions, and as the chaos ensues the Smurfs run towards a location of safety while Clumsy misreads a sign and goes the opposite way which directs him to a magical cavern where the rising Blue Moon is activating a magical portal inside the waterfall in the cave. The portal creates an esophagus like vortex sucking up Clumsy, Smurfette (Katy Perry), Gutsy (Alan Cumming), Grouchy (George Lopez), Brainy (Fred Armisen), and Papa Smurf as they hang from a cliff, and are soon defecated out in present day New York’s Central Park. Gargamel throws Azrael in through the portal as he did prior and follows suit. Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris) a marketing guru with a knack for commercial design is preparing an ad campaign because he would like to obtain the vice president position for Odile’s (Sofia Vergara) cosmetic and anti-aging company called Angelou. Clumsy manages to get inside of Patrick’s box, and the journey begins as the Smurfs follow to rescue Clumsy. The Marxist group of Smurfs is thrown into the progressive Capitalist America as they are bombarded with advertisements when they arrive in New York’s Time Square, changing their lens as they too consume the commercialism of advertising propaganda while riding on top and using the iconographic transportation of the infamous taxicab, and slowly begin to assimilate into the hyper paced Americanism of New York City. Grace Winslow (Jayma Mays) is Patrick’s expecting wife, and after quite a fright, they soon open up their small apartment to the Smurfs. Papa Smurf does not know how long they will be staying in this foreign land, so he rations the Smurf-berries. Thanks to Google and Wikipedia, Grace and Patrick can completely trust the Smurfs because of their search on their very trusty Sony Vaio Laptop (No thanks to the very intrusive extreme close-up on the product placement). The extremely generous and kind Winslow couple helps the Smurfs to find their way back home while helping them avoid the hungry clutches of Gargamel’s greedy desire to acquire the Smurf essence. The film overall gets a C- grade from an adult perspective but a a solid B from the perspective of children, especially, from the raucous up roaring laughter that filled the theater during the slapstick comedic gags. Although the writing was sub par, the cinematic tribute to Midnight CowboySmurfette). I also liked how the Smurfs go into a bookstore to find a spell book that holds an incantation that will re-open a portal to lead them back home. The book happens to be late Peyo's (Pierre Culliford) comic book anthology of the Smurfs, and they rummage through the book as if they have found the word of god, and in essence, it is the word of their lord and creator, Peyo. Meta-fiction at its best.
There are many unbelievable parts and shows the adult couple's level of immaturity and naivety, especially when they discover the Smurfs home invasion and intrusion. It would seem that they are saying, “Oh look there are tiny blue people running around my house. Hmmm…I better type in their description in my search engine. Would you look at that…the computer says, ‘They are harmless.’ Okay then, fine by me.” Yes, you are that gullible. Eat up the absurdity and follow the narrative because you are just that dumb to quickly believe what just happened, but I understand that the film is geared for children and not to be so critically digested by the adult spectators that will get dragged into the theater to consume the insanity that logic and reason.
Why does Gargamel look like Count Orlock (F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu) down to the ratty front teeth? What is up with the injection of gross-out comedy within children and family films these days? Let’s desensitize them more than they are. *Warning: there are some gross out scenes, but nothing too outrageous. * For example, Azrael, Gargamel’s beloved cat, vomits up a portion of Smurfette’s hair or during the posh restaurant sequence, Gargamel snatching an ice bucket from a waiter and urinating in it because he thinks that it is a chamber pot. Please tell me what you think. If you have seen the film, what were your concerns? 
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