They're small, they're blue and they're remarkably perky.
The new movie "The Smurfs" is a lively homage to the tiny characters, which started out in Belgian comics in the 1950s and became a sensation in America in the 1980s through Saturday morning cartoons and hundreds of collectible figurines.
For the uninitiated, the Smurfs are elf-like creatures who live in carved-out mushrooms in a Middle Ages forest. They have a tranquil life, going about their daily chores, singing, and having fun. There's only one girl in the village, the giggly, blonde-haired Smurfette (voiced by pop star Katy Perry), and the rest of the Smurfs are boys, many of whom have a crush on her. Overseeing the village is wise Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters, a fantastic comedian who sadly has to play the straight man here). Smurfs are defined by a single trait, such as the hyper-intelligent Brainy (Fred Armisen), the bumbling Clumsy (Anton Yelchin) and the blustery, scrappy Gutsy (Alan Cumming), but they get along and work together, one of the movie's wholesome messages.
They are computer-generated in the film, which is a longtime project of Jordan Kerner, the dean of the School of Filmmaking at the UNC School of the Arts. The Smurfs' surroundings and their human co-stars are live action, and for the most part the blending works. After all, who's to say whether a three-apple-tall blue elf looks realistic or not? They work in context.
Their arch-nemesis is the human Gargamel, an evil but incompetent wizard. Hank Azaria of "The Simpsons" plays Gargamel with gusto, doing his best to make dramatic entrances wherever he goes, and he steals most scenes he is in. Gargamel schemes to catch the Smurfs so he can drain their magic to use in his spells. At his side is his faithful cat Azrael, who is played by real cats with computer-generated facial expressions added in from time to time.
The plot revolves around a small band of Smurfs who, on the run from Gargamel and Azrael, jump into a time warp that drops them in modern-day New York. There, they are rescued by a young couple, Patrick and Grace (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays), who help them evade Gargamel and try to find a way back home.
Parents — especially those in their 20s to early 40s who grew up on the Smurfs — should find the film a pleasant enough distraction, with Grouchy Smurf (voiced by George Lopez) keeping things from getting too cutesy with his grumbly remarks. Patrick gets in a few zingers too, questioning the relentlessly peppy Smurfs song and their tendency to replace random words in their speech with the word "Smurf." One subplot involving Patrick's job seems lifted out of "Bewitched," with an ad campaign that goes awry in unexpected ways because of his Smurfy new friends. Sofia Vergara plays his beautiful but demanding boss.For the most part, the film remains family-friendly. There are a few action sequences that may be scary to especially young children, such as a scene where Gargamel rampages through the Smurf's mushroom village like a bumbling Godzilla. And there are a few mildly bawdy jokes, including one with Gargamel mistaking a wine bucket for a chamber pot and some remarks by Gutsy that will likely go over most children's heads. Leaving the theater, parents may need to remind their kids that it's not all right to toss real life kitties around the way Azrael is treated in the film, where many of his scenes are played for slapstick.
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