Smurfette is feeling blue (but not in a good way) in Smurfs: The Lost Village

Ditching the hybrid live action of the previous instalment for a purely animated outing, the Smurfs are back, and this time they’re still obsessing over Smurfette.

While the Smurfs live happily in their topless blue utopia of nominative determinism, Smurfette frets that she doesn’t have a purpose like her brethren. But a chance encounter with a mysterious Smurf-like creature sets her off on a journey of discovery and a race to find a lost village of Smurfs before the evil wizard Gargamel does.

The arrival of a new Smurfs film, if nothing else, at least solves the mystery of why James Cameron has been delaying the “Avatar” sequels: he was waiting for new source material to adapt. I’m calling it now, “Avatar 2” will deal with the discovery of a ‘lost’ tribe of Na’avi. Turnaround is fair play, I guess because there’s more than a hint of Pandora in the forbidden forest the Smurfs must explore to find their lost people.

The decision to step back from bringing the Smurfs into the real world frees the franchise up from having to maintain an ironic, self-aware edge and the resultant adventure is all the better for it. Without the real world, the oddities of the Smurf society are less obvious and their charm can shine through. The Lost Village is a frothy, fun adventure that skips along singing a happy tune. It’s bright, colourful and pretty funny to boot, even if the idea of a lost tribe of female Smurfs raises far more questions than it answers.

The littlest Craggling (aged 4) sagely pronounced this film as ‘better than “Trolls”’ and while I wouldn’t go that far, it’s certainly the best modern Smurfs movie to date.

smurfs the lost village review
Score 6/10


Hi there! If you enjoyed this post, why not sign up to get new posts sent straight to your inbox?

Sign up to receive a weekly digest of The Craggus' latest posts.

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

logo

Related posts

The One And Only Ivan (2020) Review

The One And Only Ivan (2020) Review

The One And Only Ivan tells a tale of gorillas and it's bliss. Arriving on Disney+ will perhaps less controversy than “Mulan” but no less deserving of heralding, “The One And Only Ivan” hearkens back to the golden age of Disney movies of the sixties and seventies which kept Dean Jones so...

Brazil (1985) Review

Brazil (1985) Review

Brazil is the source of an entire cinematic aesthetic. How on Earth has it taken me so long to get round to watching Terry Gilliam’s classic dystopian Sci-Fi comedy? To paraphrase Admiral Kirk from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn” (stay with me): I’ve managed to see just about every...

Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils Review

Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils Review

Doctor Who: Legend Of The Sea Devils is a quintessentially underwhelming Chibnall special Penultimate adventures are a curious thing in DOCTOR WHO. Sometimes they're entirely disconnected from the upcoming regeneration and sometimes they only reveal their true...

Star Trek Generations (1994) Review

Star Trek Generations (1994) Review

"They say time is the fire in which we burn…" The original series of “Star Trek” lasted for only 79 episodes and by the time it returned to the big screen there hadn’t been any new live-action adventures for Kirk and Co for ten years. The intervening years had seen massive...

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) Review

Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017) Review

Goodbye Christopher Robin offers us a very stiff upper lipped British tragedy. With something as pure and innocent as the adventures of Winnie The Pooh, you’d be forgiven for thinking the story of their creation would be equally as heart-warming and uplifting. But, as Simon Curtis’...

Ghoulies (1984) Review

Ghoulies (1984) Review

I can't say I was particularly grabbed by Ghoulies. It’s something of a curiosity of transatlantic temporal mechanics that this cheap and nasty “Gremlins” rip-off actually reached the UK a month before Joe Dante’s Christmas classic but don’t let that fool you into thinking “Ghoulies” is...

Kung Fury (2015) Review

Kung Fury (2015) Review

Everybody might be kung fu fighting but they should be Kung Fury watching! Back in December 2013, Swedish filmmaker David Sandberg started a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to produce his all-encompassing tribute to 1980’s action movies, “Kung Fury”. While the Kickstarter fell short...

Sleepaway Camp (1983) Review

Sleepaway Camp (1983) Review

Sleepaway Camp offers very little sleep but a whole lotta camp. There’s nothing remotely subtle about 1983 slasher “Sleepaway Camp” – from the moment the first images of the empty Camp Arawak site to the accompaniment of shrieking horns and ominous chords, this film is working hard to...