It’s Another Smurfs Movie…Because They Never Smurfing Learn!

I was worried about how bad my Smurfette was. Then I saw the live-action movie trailer.

And then I saw the 2025 version. I’m not sure my Smurfette is any worse, but you be the judge.

Yes, kids, they’re doing another Smurfs movie because they never learn from their mistakes. Two live-action Smurf movies becoming a joke and the one animated one leading to a Nickelodeon series, a set of direct-to-video movies, and nobody complaining about the all girl Smurf village living apart from the guys now adding more female characters to Peyo’s blue Belgium sausage fest and still Paramount refuses to learn “maybe doing another Smurfs enter our world story is not needed”.

Well, we have a trailer with just that, and other rather odd ideas. I have no problem with a Smurfette focused movie, folks. That’s the least of this trailer’s problems, and it is listed as a trailer, not a teaser. So they really think this plot, these character models, Paris, and Rhianna are going to make you want to finally see the Smurfs in the human world…not counting all the humans that exist in their world since they were originally going to be one-story characters in the Johan & Peewit comics before being popular enough to get their own comic, often used by Peyo to comment on the world. This led to the Hanna-Barbera series that brought the three apple high characters to the US and the English speaking world, and now there’s a 24/7 streaming channel just to watch Smurfs in Spanish…for some reason perfectly okay with HB’s new owners at Warner Brothers Discovery while you still have to get MeTV Toons to watch them in English or Nickelodeon to watch the new cartoon. So what’s wrong with this one? Let’s see.

You opened on a poop your pants joke. 10 seconds to already make me concerned. Nice going, Paramount. I can’t decide whether or not it’s dumber than the “replace so many words with ‘smurf’ that we can only guess what they’re talking about because censorship in a kids movie is supposed to be funny but isn’t” scene. And yes, it’s just called The Smurfs because that won’t confuse anyone looking for a Smurfs movie just called The Smurfs and not the other movie or cartoon shows of the same name. No wonder you can’t find the movie or show you want anymore. 15 of them have the same name even when they aren’t remakes!

I know you have Rihanna as your Smurfette voice actress (the ad version of the trailer even had her celebrating this), but the only thing more out of place in a series set in what’s at most 1500s Belgium than “Please Don’t Stop The Music” is Influencer Smurf. It’s the the Middle Ages! THE INTERNET ISN’T INVENTED YET, YOU IDIOTS! How you have YouTube? Actual YouTube? The live-action movies, including this one, take place in another dimension of sorts. You shouldn’t have YouTube or computers or cellphones or live in the type of community to use those things if you spend your days outdoors along with literally every other person you know only a few smurfs away from you. This stuff should not exist in an alternate reality based on Medieval Europe. Or actual Medieval Europe if we’re doing time travel instead of dimension travel.

Smurfette is also not known for an amazing or terrible singling voice, so why use Rhianna (or Katy Perry before her)? Nobody cares. You can’t see her and while she isn’t terrible she’s not exactly killing it. Please tell me this isn’t a musical. Hollywood doesn’t know how to make those anymore.

The odd part is that our world is being represented in live-action with live-action people, but there is no attempt to make the Smurfs, Gargamel, or new character Rasamel (we’ll get back to him and Papa Smurf’s brother) look like anything other than cartoons in our world. The trailer only shows the Smurfs interacting with the real world sans humans (which do exist in the Smurf’s world), reduced to being chased by dogs, but it’s still very distracting. It’s not even a great attempt to translate the 2D character designs into 3D, one of the very few things the other live-action films got right. It’s not even that good a match of Peyo’s designs. I’ve seen the previous 3D Smurf attempts so I know it can be done, but this doesn’t succeed. It’s the eyes that really don’t work for me.

Then you have this movie’s OCs Do Not Steal. Papa Smurf’s brother is just Papa Smurf with a brown beard, looking more like a 40 year old designing a Smurfsona, while Gargamel doesn’t need a brother. He should be the villain on his own, and Rasamel doesn’t look any more competent. Speaking of Smurfsonas…the ninja Smurfs…sorry, “Neighborhood Watch, Paris Division”. Why are these Smurfs even here? Will the movie explain what Uncle Smurf (I don’t know his actual name) and the Smurfjas are doing in our world? Your lore doesn’t make sense and it’s just the trailer!

I haven’t seen Smurfs: The Lost Village but I kind of want to. Otherwise I didn’t care about the other live-action/CG Smurf movies and The Smurfs & The Magic Flute is a slog (stick to the original comic, translated by Papercutz), so the Smurf track record with movies is not the best. On the full cartoon side the official YouTube channel has the original and more recent TV cartoons (with listings for other languages and related official channels) and you’re probably better off watching those than this movie.