“The Smurfs 2” Review
They’re back and ready for another pint-sized adventure, as we re-join our little blue heroes. After their previous 2011 film The Smurfs we find them once again traveling to our world, this time to save Smurfette (voiced by Katy Perry) from the evil Gargamel. Since we last joined the Smurfs Gargamel has achieved international acclaim as the best sorcerer in the world, but he’s quickly running out of Smurf-essence, without which he will never be able to accomplishing his ultimate goal of becoming supreme ruler of the world. In order to help his evil plan Gargamel creates his new henchman the Noughties – Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hachus (JB Smoove) – who are sent into the Smurf realm to capture Smurfette.
Vexy and Smurfette
Having spanned decades, The Smurfs franchise is now a staple of many people’s childhoods since its origins as a Belgian comic book in 1958, finding themselves in comic books, televisions, cinemas, video games, live shows and collectable toys across the globe. As a testament to this, the last film truly stormed the box office, taking in over $560million; It would seem audiences young and old love the Smurfs, and with the film taking these well-loved characters and updating them for the new generation into a modern, hyper-realistic brand of their own.
Other recent blockbusting family outings for Sony Pictures Animation include Hotel Transylvania and Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs, as well as teaming up with Aardman for Arther Christmas and the Academy Award-nominated Pirates! In An Adventure With Scientists. With The Smurfs 2 and a sequel to Cloudy… on it’s way, this animation company is firing on all cylinders. One of the key components of bringing The Smurfs 2 together was reuniting the key team behind the first film – Raja Gosnell (director) and Jordan Kerner (producer) join up again with director of photography Phil Meheux, editor Sabrina Pilsco, composer Heitor Pereira and visual effects supervisor Richard R Hoover, leading a larger team at Sony Pictures Imageworks.
“In doing this movie, it’s not only a reunion of the characters we know and love, but also a reunion of people who work together and trust each other. Its like a family or summer camp when we get together” says Kerner. The film is full of fun, action and heart from this strong team. The film is set in Paris, and alongside cinematic pans of the city there are also plenty of technically challenging scenes in the film, such as a stork ride above the city which involves different camera work for each part. “We were able to fly cameras in Tuileries Park, around the Ferris Wheel, and around the model of the Statue of Liberty,” says Gosnell. “But as you can imagine we looked for something a little safer whe it came to other parts of the sequence, like the flying buttresses. For those we used steadicam- a man walking through, doing flying motion, and we sped it up. It’s old-school, but it still works perfectly.” For other shots there were cranes and camera shot, every shot had a different approach.
All CGI wizardry and animation techniques aside, the film is destined to be a surefire summer hit – for kids anyway – so be prepared for a summer of “Smurf this” and “Smurf that”, coupled with a theme tune even die hard fans and grumpy Smurf consider too sugary. At the end of the day, while it isn’t exactly mind-blowing in terms of narrative it’s fun enough to get you in your kids’ good books for the summer break.