Smurfs: The Lost Village

One could expend prodigious time and energy examining the questionable necessity, or obvious lack thereof, for Sony to resurrect the Smurfs franchise after the cinematic abortions that were the mixed-media 2011 and 2013 films featuring Neil Patrick Harris and Katy Perry. But like it or not, some ideas don’t die easily — and studios hate to relinquish a property that has the slightest chance of turning a profit.

For our sins, the moviegoing gods have bestowed upon hapless audiences a fully animated reboot that seeks to address the missteps of those recent takes on the eponymous elfin mushroom-dwellers conceived by Belgian cartoonist Peyo in the late 1950s. While this film is certainly a step in the right direction, no amount of retooling can justify this blatant attempt to bait Gen Y parents into fostering in their children an appreciation for a concept that would have best been left in the sugar-addled memories of 1980s Saturday morning cartoon binges.

Smurfs: The Lost Village skews almost exclusively to the younger demographic among its audience, excluding any and all adult humor in favor of some relatively impressive visuals and a decidedly juvenile sense of story. Even a moderately precocious 7-year-old may find his or her cinematic tastes too sophisticated for the narrative on display here, but the quality of the animation will likely prove passably diverting for most of the film’s mercifully brief 90-minute running time. The film is competently — and occasionally beautifully — animated, with marketably cute character design and some surprisingly distinctive set pieces that tangentially evoke the surrealism of Odilon Redon (while avoiding the more frightening implications that such a comparison could suggest).

The story, such as it is, revolves around Smurfette — the lone female Smurf in her village, voiced here by Demi Lovato — lacking a defining characteristic in the same sense as her fellow Smurfs, whose names indicate their definitive (or sole) personality trait. There’s Hefty Smurf, who’s strong; Brainy Smurf, who’s smart; Clumsy Surf, who … well, you get the idea. Gender politics have been a problem within the Smurfs franchise since the introduction of Smurfette in the late ’60s, as her narrative origin is based on ideas of toxic femininity and dependence on a masculine hierarchy. Created by the villainous wizard Gargamel from a lump of clay like some sort of seductive Golem, Smurfette’s raison d’être is to infiltrate and destabilize the Smurfs’ community through the exploitation of her feminine wiles, and only the benevolent intercession of Papa Smurf redeems her. That this transformation requires the character’s transition from a frazzle-headed brunette into an impeccably coiffured blonde while stripping her of any sense of agency is a telling detail that should indicate why feminists have long taken issue with the concept of Smurfette on a fundamental level.

This film pays lip service to addressing these concerns, as Smurfette stumbles upon a village populated entirely by female Smurfs in an off-limits section of the forest, but the script’s progressive tendencies end there. The female Smurfs are just as thinly developed as the males, and little is done to balance the gender equation beyond creating numeric parity. Julia Roberts plays a feminine counterpart to Papa Smurf, but the two are almost immediately coupled off as though a romantic relationship were an inevitability. For the purposes of this movie, perhaps Papa Smurf should be rechristened Exposition Dump Smurf — voiced by Mandy Patinkin in a “so-it’s-come-to-this” role of tragic proportions. The rest of the voice cast — featuring Rainn Wilson, Jack McBrayer, Michelle Rodriguez and Joe Manganiello — are all relatively unobjectionable, but little more.

As far as frivolous films for 5-year-olds go, Smurfs: The Lost Village didn’t fill me with a level of seething resentment that would warrant gouging out my own eyes, which is sadly something of an accomplishment when it comes to such fare. The very young will (probably) enjoy it, and everyone else will be able to endure it. Personally, I hope I get to skip the inevitable sequel. Rated PG for some mild action and rude humor. Now Playing at AMC Classic River Hills 10 (formerly Carmike 10), Carolina Cinemark, Regal Biltmore Grande, Epic of Hendersonville, The Strand Waynesville.