With The Muppets being revived, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles already solidly revamped and nearly every comic strip character brought to life, it is no surprise to see The Smurfs thrown into the mix. Next it will be The Care Bears or Gummy Bears. What makes The Smurfs a curious film is the quickness in which it pulls out of the Smurf world and into Manhattan
The story only makes room for a handful of the Smurfs, who are unlucky enough to get sucked through a portal while chased by the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria). They come out the other side in Central Park and somehow find their way into the lives of a young couple (Neil Patrick Harris and Sofia Vergara). Our world is a mystery to these small blue visitors, and this provides the typical fish-out-of-water humor until the arrival of Gargamel leads to a big fight and the happy resolution.
The animation is cutting edge and The Smurfs actually look pretty good. If I had my choice I still would have preferred a stop-animation Smurf over these CGI ones, but they really looked best in 2D. One of the reasons to see this film on Blu-ray is the way that these effects look in high definition, and the rest of the reasons are in the special features.
The 3-Disc Holiday Blu-ray and DVD Gift Set comes with a bonus DVD of an all new mini Christmas movie starring The Smurfs. This is a wonderful addition to the package which gives it relevance for the holidays as well. The DVD with the feature film on it also comes with a Smurf game, whereas all of the rest of the features are included on the Blu-ray disc. There is a spectacular feature for playback with a second screen, for all of those ipad owners. For the rest of us, there is another Smurf game and a number of featurettes. There are also deleted scenes and two commentary tracks.
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