Film: Smurfs, the lost village

The Smurf factory is running at full tilt. At the end of last year, the 35th comic was published in the series first launched by Peyo and Yvan Delporte. And new merchandise can already be found in the shops.

This is all, of course, intended to promote Smurfs: The Lost Village, a reboot of the Sony Pictures Animation cartoon franchise that only achieved moderate success with The Smurfs 2. Kelly Asbury, co-director of Shrek 2, has wisely decided to avoid live action and focuses primarily on anti-sexist gender identity, quite a revolution in the phallocracy that is Smurfland.

Unfortunately, however, the result is a mediocre, wacky action-adventure in kitsch colours. The playful humour is much too innocent, the creepy villain Gargamel is unimaginative and derivative throughout, and for fans of Peyo's work, the well-meant enigma that Brainy Smurf, Hefty Smurf, and Clumsy Smurf try to solve in the Forbidden Forest – what is a Smurfette? – has no punch, originality, or depth.

> Smurfs: the lost village. US, 2017, dir.: Kelly Asbury, 89 min.
> Kinepolis, Le Stockel, White Cinema