Smurfs review – a drab exercise in IP filler material

We started, in 2011, with the pop singer-songwriter Katy Perry stepping into the pearly-white high-heels of that most coveted role in the world of animated voice-acting: Smurfette. She managed to retain the role for the 2013 sequel, but then lost it to pop singer-songwriter Demi Lovato, who took the reins for 2017’s Smurfs: The Lost Village. And now, in 2025, we have yet another pop singer-songwriter lending their dulcet tones to essay the only female Smurf in existence.

Like the vaunted roster of famous actors who have played Hamlet, we will soon be able to namecheck that glorious lineage of actors who have tried their hand at Smurfette, with Rihanna stepping up to the plate for this latest incarnation. ​“I loved your Smufette,” people will call from the jostling throngs outside a gala première, or from the front rows of a stadium concert. We only have to imagine who next will be tapped up to play animation’s most iconic lone female?

We mention this because the tagline ​“Rihanna is Smurfette” appears to be the sole marketing strategy for this new piece of familiar filler fodder, its distributors obviously convinced that this is the only piece of information that potential viewers will need to know in order to convert them from ​“Smurf curious” to ​“Smurf client”. It’s interesting to see that most of the reaction from her fans to this headline star casting is some variation of, ​“Rih-rih, why are you doing this instead of going back to the studio? It’s been nine years since the last record!”

Sad to say, however, that her voice acting in Smurfs is not going to scratch that particular itch, as she and her brethren head off on a standard-issue inter-dimensional journey to prevent a magic book from slipping into the hands of Gargamel’s even-more-evil brother, Razamel. The plot is slipshod, the jokes are weak and the animation style offers very little to lodge into the memory. It has all the characteristics of one of those movies – that have become quite a regular occurrence now – where the only reason for its existence is to fulfil a contractual obligation and justify further retention of IP rights.

Unlike the original Katy Perry-era films, which placed the animated Smurfs against live-action backdrops and alongside human actors, this one has occasional scenes of our lil’ blue pals wandering through the streets of Paris or London, but it all looks like anonymous stock footage. It’s such a strange and alienating creative decision, and almost lends the film an experimental edge.

Elsewhere we’ve got some weak, showtune-esque musical numbers, some wacky alternative animated inserts, and a ​“stop the bad guy from getting the thing” storyline that even the majority of its pre-teen audience will have seen a billion times before. This is so sub-par that it even had this reviewer secretly yearning for the Wildean-wit (relatively speaking) and toe-tapping musicality of the Trolls movies. And James Cordon, fittingly, gives his voice to a Smurf who has no purpose in the world.