Smurfs spread love, fun on big screen

MOVIE REVIEW

The Smurfs 3D

Rated: G

Review: Fiona Hinds

Rating: 9/10

There was much hype around this movie before its release.

With Hollywood struggling under the weight of internet and TV overload, the trend to swamp the pre-launch market with cuter than cute merchandising to raise kids’ ‘‘pester-a-parent’’ levels to hysterical levels had swung into overdrive with The Smurfs Movie 3D.

The Smurfs(French:Les Schtroumpfs, Dutch:DeSmurfen) is a comic and television franchise centred on a group of small blue fictional creatures called Smurfs, created and first introduced as a series of comic strips by the Belgian cartoonist Peyo (pen name of Pierre Culliford) on October 23, 1958.

There have been several Smurf movies, the first dating back to 1965, but the 2011 3D version is by far the most glamorous.

The Smurfs themselves are voiced by big-named entertainment stars, the most noteworthy being Katy Perry as the only girl Smurf, catchily named Smurfette.

Human appearances are made by Neil Patrick Harris (of "HowIMet Your Mother" fame) and Glee’s Jayma Mays who play Patrick and Grace Winslow, a human couple in New York who help the Smurfs get back to their village when they accidentally stumble into our world.

Harris is well-suited to the big screen with some well delivered one-liners and a killer Guitar Hero scene.

The other main human is played by Hank Azaria who is barely recognisable as the Smurfs’ nemesis, the evil Gargamel, but is obviously having an absolute ball as, with his CGI cat Azrael, they set about destroying the Smurfs’ village and trying desperately to spoil everyone’s day with some clumsy attempts at world domination.

The Smurfs spread love and ‘‘smurfiness’’ wherever they go in the Big Apple, transforming the soon-to-be-parents Winslow’s drab brownstone apartment into a place of flowers, light and colour, while Papa Smurf doles out wise smurf-grown wisdom about life and parenting.

The ‘‘smurfisms’’ in the catchy script are clever and infectious, even for grown-ups.

Particular favourites of mine were the transformation of the traditional ‘‘high five’’ into a‘‘high four’’ (reflecting the Smurfs’ four-fingered hands) and the replacement of as many words as possible with the word ‘‘smurf’’.

I left the cinema doing the same, and found myself smurfing at the silliness of the resulting sentences.

Go on, smurf it. I smurf you.

With the storyline a fairly standard mix of lots of good, a smattering of evil and a predictable triumph, further description of the movie would be mainly spoils.

You will get none of that from me.

My 10-year-old daughter was all anticipation for weeks before the launch and she was not disappointed.

Serious grown-ups with pre-teen sons, daughters, nieces, nephews or grandchildren should see The Smurfs to revisit some child-like times.

The rest of us who have not yet grown up should see it because it is just plain good fun.

My daughter gave it 10/10, I gave it 8/10 — an average of 9/10, which is plain smurfalicious.