Perhaps the best thing I can say about this movie is that it is not completely unwatchable. It was even, at times, vaguely enjoyable, and twice I actually laughed out loud. There have certainly been worse movies based on cartoon series beloved of my childhood self: The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, Garfield, Astroboy. But there have been many better, too, and certainly ones not nearly so... perplexingly critical of their source material.

Let us start, however, with the fact that this movie steals from so very many others that it may as well be called Alvin and the 101 Enchanted Smurfs Take Manhattan: Gulliver’s Big, Madagascar Toy Story. It all kicks off when Clumsy Smurf’s (Anton Yelchin) constant trips and pratfalls get him banished from the Smurf Choir. The Blue Moon Festival is coming up, and he earnestly wants to help out, so despite orders from Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) to stay where it’s safe, he goes off to collect smurf root in the forest… where he is spotted by Gargamel (Hank Azaria), the wicked wizard who is, of course, our little blue friends’ traditional enemy. Clumsy foolishly leads Gargamel and his frighteningly sentient cat, Azrael, to the magically-cloaked Smurf Village, which is then stomped like Tokyo under the feet of Godzilla. The Smurfs run for their lives, but silly Clumsy runs the wrong way and ends up disappearing through a portal that takes him and five other Smurfs out of their magical land and into… you guessed it… New York City.

It is here that the bizarrely critical tone of this movie really amps up. It is one thing for Gargamel to be mocking Smurfette (Katy Perry) and the gang; quite another for their new human friends (naturally enough, they soon get them) to point out every logical flaw in their otherwise fairy tale existence.

These human friends are the cutely expectant couple of Patrick and Grace Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays). Patrick is in marketing for a cosmetic company, and his BIG PROMOTION has just come through -- if only his new little visitors won’t screw it up for him. Patrick is constantly down on the Smurfs for just about everything (even their signature “La, la, la la la la” tune, demanding: “Come on, none of you find that song just the tiniest bit annoying?”), while Grace tells a forlorn Clumsy that no one is defined merely by one characteristic, and he can overcome his awkwardness merely by realizing that.

Um. Yeah. That is exactly the opposite of what the Smurfs are all about. Just sayin’.

Patrick, meanwhile, is cranky about their vernacular, complaining: “You like to use the extremely imprecise word “smurf” for just about everything.” (“Smurf-zactly!” exclaims Brainy, played by SNL stalwart Fred Armisen.) And when Clumsy, having endangered Patrick’s job, apologizes “I’m smurfily sorry,” Patrick grouses: “Stop saying that word! ‘Smurf.’ What does that even mean? Smurfity smurf smurf smurf!” The assembled Smurfs gasp. “There’s no call for that kind of language, laddie,” chides Gutsy.

Who is Gutsy, you may well ask? He’s a kilt-wearing Scots-Smurf, who likes to make Braveheart references and may very well be the most racist of all the little blue folks ever created. Okay, sure, Vanity Smurf (played here by The Daily Show’s John Oliver) could potentially be considered a homophobic archetype, but this little stereotypical clansman is way worse. If I were Scottish, I’d be horribly offended. As it is, I am merely bemused, and more than a little put off.

Another Smurf created for this movie – and my new personal favorite – is Narrator Smurf, who wears a dapper evening jacket and speaks in the voice of Tom Kane, voiceover man par excellence, and who quite literally narrates parts of the movie. Even as the Smurfs are battling Gargamel for return of their Papa (or, as Patrick calls him at one point, “the little blue Santa man”), Narrator is all like: “There comes a time when every Smurf must stand up for what is right…”

That was pretty funny.

We also hear mention of a Panicky Smurf, a Complimentary Smurf (“He always has such nice things to say!”) and a Passive-Aggressive Smurf (“He’s always so nice, but when he leaves you feel bad.”) Also, funny.

Then there are the less funny ha ha, more funny-groan things in the movie. Like how Smurfette says coyly, “I kissed a Smurf and I liked it” at one point. How George Lopez, as Grouchy Smurf, claims “I don’t do windows”, and later falls in love with a stuffed-toy version of M&M’s anthropomorphized Green. There’s also a part where the Smurfs are running around FAO Schwartz and are seen by kids who instantly want them bad. (Product placement has never been easier.)

Sigh.

What saves all of this from absolute idiocy are its occasional flashes of cleverness and the performances of Harris and Mays (whose Bambi-like eyes have long made her a shoo-in for a Disney movie at some point); as well as Hank Azaria as Gargamel, who is very, very amusing, and nails the cartoonish villainy of the character perfectly (“Azrael… are you dead?”). Sofia Vergara is likewise quite good in this movie; she plays the beautiful and spoilt Odile, Patrick’s boss, and seriously, that woman is a wonder. She makes even the ugly word "Gargamel" sound sexy, suggesting she has a singular magic of her own.

Where it all falls down, then, is in the script. It’s just too… confused. This is clearly a movie that wants us to find it adorable, but at the same time it is a parody that has gone too far over into the realm of outright satire. Whereas Peyo’s original works satirized the real world around him, however, this movie satirizes The Smurfs themselves. Never, I think, have I been invited to celebrate and yet also despise a concept pretty much simultaneously.

Look, a loving, self-mocking homage can be a wonderful thing -- see The Brady Bunch Movie, or Galaxy Quest. But in the final analysis, for me, The Smurfs just comes off as unwontedly mean-spirited, in addition to being kind of nonsensical, and surely the target of dozens of plagiarism suits.

None of which is smurfy at all.

   -- Rachel Hyland