Review: 'Smurfs' is a chaotic attempt to wring any humor, whimsy or anything genuine out of a classic cartoon franchise

Thankfully, I was seated away from small children when I attended a recent preview screening of “Smurfs,” the latest attempt to turn Peyo’s classic blue cartoon characters into a movie franchise — because I blurted out a word not appropriate for little ears.

It was in the first five minutes, when a character called No Name Smurf — lamenting that he doesn’t have a name that describes his occupation or other character trait, like the others — started singing, in the voice of James Corden, the movie’s “I want” song. What I muttered under my breath was, “Oh, Smurf me.” Except I didn’t say “Smurf.”

That turned out to be the high point of “Smurfs,” a chaotic mishmash of kid-movie plotting and amuse-the-grownups one-liners that tries to establish a heroic mythology for the Smurfs while also mocking the idea that such grandiosity should even exist. It’s a movie that might have looked good on paper at some point, in terms of pushing a brand toward a new audience, but makes no sense narratively, comedically or emotionally.

The Smurfs are happily partying when No Name gets hold of some magic book, called Jaunty (voiced by Amy Sedaris), and starts playing around with the magic powers the book bestows on him. That draws the attention of an evil wizard, Razamel (voiced by JP Karliak), who comes through a portal and kidnaps Papa Smurf (voiced by John Goodman).

After a few moments of panic in Smurf Village, it’s up to Smurfette — the only female Smurf, voiced by Rihanna (in fact, the movie’s tagline is “Rihanna is Smurfette”) — to lead a rescue party. The Smurfs venture through the portal, and end up in a live-action Paris, where they find some ninja Smurfs and Papa Smurf’s old friend Ken (voiced by Nick Offerman), who imparts the heroic backstory of how the Smurfs fought a group of evil wizards to protect all that’s good in the world. And now, the wizards are amassing again and must be taken down.

Arriving in Paris, director Chris Miller (A DreamWorks alum who directed the first “Puss in Boots”) and writer Pam Brady (“Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken”) open up more questions than answers. Among them: Why do the motivations of Razamel’s brother, the Smurfs’ longtime nemesis Gargamel (also voiced by Karliak), shift every 15 seconds? Or why is Paris depicted in live-action footage, but the human characters we meet there — like Razamel’s assistant, Joel (voiced by Dan Levy) — animated? And who in their right minds thought any of this was funny?

The songs are forgettable, even with Rihanna singing them. (Rihanna joins a list of pop singers who made some of their worst music while voicing Smurfette, a list that includes Katy Perry and Demi Lovato.) The animation style is a hybrid of Pixar-style computer animation and old-school line drawing, which produces the cheapest versions of both.

There’s a line toward the end, where Papa Smurf warns away the evil wizards by saying, “Don’t mistake our kindness for weakness.” That was the only moment of “Smurfs” that brought me joy, only because I started to imagine a certain segment of the Internet gearing up to declare “the Smurfs have gone woke” — and the thought that such people would waste their time getting mad about a movie so inconsequential made me smile.

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‘Smurfs’

★

Opens Friday, July 18, in theaters everywhere. Rated PG for action, language and some rude humor. Running time:  92 minutes; accompanied by a 3-minute “SpongeBob SquarePants” short, “Order Up.”