Smurfs
An interesting detail about Smurfs, not to be confused with 2011’s The Smurfs, is how heavily its marketing leans on its star-studded cast. “Rihanna is Smurfette” takes precedence over traditional taglines, sometimes replacing the tagline outright. Savvy moviegoers might see this as a grim portent, but would they be correct?
One thing Smurfs has going for it is the visuals, benefiting from the post-Spider-Verse aesthetic renaissance, with vibrant colours, engaging animation and a style effectively evoking the series’ comic roots. There are some set pieces where the animators went all-out that are genuinely gorgeous, welcome oases of creativity and passion. If nothing else, the animation teams deserve their flowers for their work here.
However, that is Smurfs’ only positive quality. Tragically, the animators’ hard work is smothered by the rest of the production.
To say its storytelling is bad would be inaccurate; it’d be more correct to say it doesn’t have a story at all. It’s almost academically fascinating how Smurfs rejects basic narrative principles, with no attempts to establish dramatic tension, tone, characters, or even continuity between individual conversations. Nothing happens for 92 minutes; characters are dispassionately shepherded from scene to scene with no effort to make anything on screen interesting. There is a dance-party opening and a dance-party ending.
“Rihanna is Smurfette”, the posters cry, and indeed she is, but what good is that if Rihanna doesn’t have anything compelling to say as Smurfette? And her co-star is James Corden?
This weak, phoned-in writing extends to the film’s comedy. No joke made it through the writing room in one piece; even the smallest gags are dragged out to the point of agony, every punchline overstaying its welcome. The jokes are also painfully out of touch, assuming that simply mentioning things like LinkedIn, podcasts, or Zoom is enough to be funny.
Animation has come a long way over the past few years, and streaming services mean it’s easier than ever for children to access beautiful, emotive productions that stimulate and challenge young minds. Smurfs is none of those things, and resents having to be a film at all. Focus-tested and revised within an inch of its life, it has no ambitions above selling Smurf merchandise but lacks the narrative conviction for even that, serving as nothing more than a 92-minute distraction and a grim cautionary tale about how capitalism stifles creativity.
Rihanna is Smurfette, and God is dead.
Umar Ali
Smurfs is released nationwide on 18th July 2025.
Watch the trailer for Smurfs here:
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