Kids Movie Review - The Smurfs 2

So, the sequel to The Smurfs... yeah.  Okay to be fair the first Smurfs movie did have a couple of redeeming features, primarily the bad guy, Gargamel and his cat, Azrael, so how does The Smurfs 2 stack up.  Is everything coming up Smurfy or is it just a complete Smurf up.

The Smurfs 2 sees the evil wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) taking the world by storm as a magician after a youtube clip of him in action goes viral.  Trouble is his magic relies on Smurf essence so he creates The Naughties to help him kidnap Smurfette (Katy Perry) in an effort to get the formula that made Smurfette a true Smurf after he created her.  There is also a sub/parallel plot involving returning helpful human Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and his estranged step father Victor (Brendan Gleeson) that ties in with the general going ons.

This really is a smurfing bad movie.  I know it's aimed at kids but even that doesn't present much room to move.  I think it's main aim is to baffle everyone, young or old, who watches it with constant fast paced visual overload.  There were points were so much was going on my head started to hurt.  The kids only really laughed at slapstick moments involving Gargamel and Azrael.  The rest of the gags either flew over their heads or just plain missed the mark.  One of the characters, a Naughty by the name of Hackus (J B Smoove), is just plain annoying and is only remarkable by being the character with less depth than the rest of this movie.  The other Naughty, Vexy (Christina Ricci), has the dubious honour of being the most well rounded character in this mess.

I still need to give props to Hank Azaria though.  He certainly gives the role of Gargamel everything he's got and if he had better material to work with he may well have saved this movie that same way he did with The Smurfs.  The biggest laughs really came from his arguments with his cat.

There really isn't much more to say.  Younger kids will probably enjoy this movie on a purely hyperactive visual level and laugh at the funny wizard.  As for the parents... well you could always try to have a bit of a nap or something because this movie will smurfing annoy you, especially the heavily auto-tuned "hip" horror of a soundtrack.  My head still smurfing hurts.  Do not pay full smurfing price for this piece of smurf or you will feel ripped off.

In a word - Smurgle-blah.