Tag: Ariel Winter

The Smurfs and The Smurfs 2 were met with a lot of mixed results, especially on this site. But you know what? A lot of things really worked.

Like Hank Azaria as Gargamel. He was great as the voice and character himself and felt perfect. I also enjoyed Neil Patrick Harris as our human contact.

But the sequel bombed because it was a poor movie. However they blamed it on the real actors for whatever reason and promised that the next Smurfs movie would stay in Smurfs land. No real people, just CGI for everyone. And now we have Smurfs: The Lost Village as a sort of reboot on the franchise where people won’t realize that things are different.

Hundreds of smurfs, and we will only focus on a handful of course.

In this movie we are reminded again that Smurfette (Demi Lovato) was created by Gargamel (Rainn Wilson) to find the smurfs and be evil, but Papa Smurf (Mandy Patinkin) did some of that smurf magic to make her blonde, and thus, nicer. However, Smurfette feels weird because she doesn’t know what her smurf talent is. After all, all the men smurfs have an adjective to describe their talent, but her talent is just being a girl I guess.

After some fun time, Smurfette, Brainy Smurf (Danny Pudi), Hefty Smurf (Joe Manganiello), and Clumsy Smurf (Jack McBrayer) find some other smurf like thing who runs into the forbidden forest, blocked by a huge wall. And through some plot, Gargamel finds out that in that forest is a hidden smurf village that no one knew about before. If he can’t get the close smurfs, he might as well get the ones that don’t even know he exist!

So now these smurfs go out on an adventure, alone, to try and race to the lost village to warn the smurfs about Gargamel before it is too late.

Also featuring Ariel Winter, Dee Bradley Baker, Ellie Kemper, Frank Welker, Julia Roberts, Meghan Trainer, and Michelle Rordriguez.

Blonde just has to stand out I guess. Blue all the way down otherwise.

Why is it really that whenever we get a smurfs movie, they can only handle an actual handful amount only, and never like 10 or more? Oh we get one off jokes for a few of the smurfs. Vanity and Nosy got a few jokes I guess, but everyone else was one scene and done for the most part. Such a goddamn waste when there are like a hundred of them. Such lazy writers. Clumsy being there is just for comic relief, at least Hefty and Brainy have a purpose.

Wilson does a terrible Gargamel. If Azoria was never Gargamel in the past, I don’t know if I would be saying that, but at least comparison, it is so much worse. It just feels like some dude talking, not an evil grouchy balding wizard. He has lost his snarl in this movie and never feels threatening.

The story itself is just so generic. The adventure has bullshit perils, generic bad plantlife and lacks any amount of creativity.

But the worst part is that the ending is complete crap. For whatever reason, Smurfette is suddenly immune to a spell from Gargamel because she really isn’t a smurf. However, that same spell worked on rats and Gargamel, who also aren’t smurfs, so I am not sure why that it is relevant. And apparently what that really means is that Gargamel can’t cast spells on her at all. And that is how the plot gets finished, because she saves everyone by tricking him. And it serves absolutely no logic at all.

There are few okay moments and decent jokes, but it is a huge shit show. And it is not because of any human people this time. Also, Demi Lovato as Smurfette is a poor man’s Katy Perry. It is true and you know it.

Ah, Hollywood has set out to ruin reintroduce another beloved cartoon franchise for the modern masses! This time it is Mr. Peabody & Sherman, based on Peabody’s Improbable History, a short featured on the original Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoon show.

Which is great. I know they did The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle about fifteen years ago, and it bombed, by why not the short associated with it? In fact, we need more shorts from shows to make it to the big screen. If I had to chose just one, I’d pick Justice Friends from Dexter’s Laboratory. Yes, that would make an excellent film indeed.

But only live action, like Underdog, another successful cartoon to movie reboot.

But I digress. It is this dog’s day to shine.

Mr. Peabody (Ty Burrell) is the smartest entity in the world and he has invented a lot of things. The one challenge he had left to face was raising a son, however, so as luck would have it, he finds a boy Sherman (Max Charles) to adopt. Mr. Peabody vows to raise the boy right and teach him all about the world!

So he invents the Way Back machine (or “WABAK” but I never saw it written that way in the film) that allows him to travel time and space. Now he can teach him fun historical facts! As long as he doesn’t travel to a time where they already exist, because then there would be two of them which could have catastrophic consequences!

However, at this point, it is time for Sherman’s first day of school ever, which is also apparently first grade. There, he is picked on by a girl bully Penny (Ariel Winter, our second Modern Family cast member) and he bites her! Oh no! A social service lady, Ms. Grunion (Allison Janney) believes it is Mr. Peabody’s fault as a dog cannot properly raise a boy.

With Mr. Peabody’s integrity on the line, he makes a plan to invite Penny and her parents (Stephen Colbert, Leslie Mann) for dinner, to prove that he is a good parent and hopefully reconcile the relationship between Penny and Sherman. Unfortunately, Sherman shows Penny the Way Back and everything falls to pieces.

Also featuring the voice talents of Stanley Tucci, Patrick Warburton (yes, Krunk), and Tom McGrath.

“Now shut up Sherman while I go bang some pre-historic bitches.” Wow, Mr. Peabody used to be a jerk.

Ah yes, a movie about time travel, history, and learning! All with the potential for both kids humor and “smart jokes” without necessarily getting into the “adult joke” territory.

However, if you are going to make a movie involving time travel, you have to be prepared to be judged accordingly, regardless of intent. To me, there were a lot of flaws with the way time travel was presented in this movie. It created paradoxes (outside of the ones shown in the movie) and other bad time no-no’s, but chose to ignore all of them. Bah. It is not too hard to make a sensical time travel movie, this one just failed to do so.

Speaking of nonsense, the ending was a huge mess. Everything was bad, excrement was hitting the proverbial fan, chaos. But they had a plan to solve it! Yeah, it didn’t make any amount of sense, scientifically or otherwise. It worked in the movie and then it ended. Honestly, it felt worse than a deus ex machina. It just made me feel cheated.

Basically, the creators said that if they are going to make stuff up, they might as well go completely made up.

Other than that, this movie did have some enjoyable moments and jokes. There were nice puns everywhere, as a throwback to the original and a few touching scenes. However, the plot they give the movie is under developed and doesn’t even serve as a good excuse for time travel. I think Mr. Peabody & Sherman could have been so much more and easily turned into a huge franchise.

Oh well, at least I got the sweet 3D Glasses Add-On.