EVEN BLUE GIRLS GET THE BLUES

Opening this week:

Smurfs: The Lost Village—The third entry in Sony's Smurf series focuses on Smurfette, the lone female among the tiny blue-skinned residents of Smurf Village. The first two films in this series, from 2011 and 2013, were both directed by Raja Gosnell and mixed animation with live action. The Lost Village is all animated, and eschews any visits to the human world. The plot concerns the discovery of a previously unknown neighboring Smurf village, and the quest by Smurfette and some of her friends to warn its inhabitants of a threat from the sinister wizard Gargamel and his much more observant cat Azreal.

In case you've managed to remain unfamiliar with the elfin race created in the late '50s by the Belgian cartoonist Pierre "Peyo" Culliford, the Smurfs (originally "Les Schtroumpfs") are named according to their defining characteristic, as in Brainy Smurf, Clumsy Smurf, Nosey Smurf, Paranoid Smurf, etc. Only Smurfette lacks a signature trait. She has a rather Manichaean backstory, having been created by Gargamel as an agent against the Smurfs, then won over to the side of light by exposure to their relentless niceness. But she feels incomplete without her very own adjective.

The movie's acknowledgement of the presumption, longstanding in the narrative traditions of our culture, that Smurfette's gender is sufficient by itself to define her, is potentially interesting. But nothing much is done with it, beyond acknowledgement, and otherwise this is a pretty by-the-numbers animated kid flick. It's watchable enough, but about the most that can be said for it is that it's inoffensive.

Demi Lovato replaces the earlier film's Katy Perry as the voice of Smurfette, while Rainn Wilson does his usual droll work as the voice of Gargamel, replacing the live-action version of Hank Azaria. Mandy Patinkin replaces the late Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, while the leader of the newly discovered village is voiced by Julia Roberts. Strange to think that the Pretty Woman herself is ready for matriarch roles.

SMURFSIDE 6

It’s understandable if you don’t feel much enthusiasm at the prospect of taking your kid to The Smurfs. You may fear you’re in for a pretty cloying hour & a half.

Created in the late ‘50s by the Belgian comic artist Pierre “Peyo” Culliford—as Les Schtroumpfs; the term Smurf was a Dutch rendering—the tiny, blue-skinned forest gnomes were popularized in the U.S. by a highly successful Hanna-Barbera cartoon series which ran from 1981 to 1989. This was after my time as an observant Saturday morning TV devotee, though I have a niece who was a major Smurfhead. The glimpses I got of the show back then struck me as sappy & oppressively sticky-sweet, exactly the sort of goody-two-shoes stuff that took the fun out of watching cartoons.

So it’s a pleasure to report that I thoroughly enjoyed the new feature film version, which mixes computer-animation and live-action, & is set both in “Smurf Village” and in New York City. I wouldn’t claim that it’s a classic, but it has a buoyantly self-mocking attitude, a generous heart, good performances &, for me at least, a surprising number of laughs. Even the 3D effects work pretty well in this primary-colors fantasy, though it would lose nothing in 2D.

The story begins in “Smurf Village,” where preparations for the Blue Moon Festival are interrupted by the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) & his familiar, the sinister cat Azrael, who at last locate the Village & rampage around like Japanese monsters. A half dozen of the Smurfs escape through a magic portal & find themselves in another enchanted land: modern-day Manhattan.

They fall into the company of Neil Patrick Harris, as an ambitious young marketing executive for a cosmetics company, & of his pregnant wife (Jayma Mays). The Smurfs & The Yuppies exchange life lessons while attempting to foil Gargamel & kitty, who have followed them through the portal.

This insipid plot works, primarily, because the screenwriters—a gaggle, with eye-crossingly unmemorable names—don’t run from the insipidity. They embrace the annoying aspects of the material, like the Smurfs’ relentless cheerfulness, or the repetitive theme song, & turn them to comic advantage by bouncing them off of the New York state of mind.

Director Raja Gosnell moves things along nicely & makes funny use of the NYC settings. Harris & Mays act their hearts out, & the live-action cast includes Sofia Vergara, Tim Gunn & Victor Pagan in a clever bit as a street person. But the stand-out, unsurprisingly, is Azaria, who puts on a fine over-the-top show as the sarcastic, put-upon Gargamel, requiring nothing more than the cat for a straight-man.

Leading the voice cast are Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf, Anton Yelchin as Clumsy, Fred Armisen as Brainy, George Lopez as Grumpy, Alan Cumming as the kilted Gutsy, & Katy Perry as the sweet, coy Smurfette—as always, the Smurfs have names reflective of their dominant personality traits. In the course of the film, we learn of the existence of Passive-Aggressive Smurf: He’s nice, but you feel bad after you talk to him. If there’s a sequel, I hope he has a major role.