Tag: George Lopez

I am a huge fan of The Purge series. Or at least the first one, which I still think is the best, and The Purge: Anarchy. And The Purge: Election Year didn’t live up to the first two for me.

Anyways, because of this I was actually excited to see Meet The Blacks. It had virtually no advertisements, opened in only a little over a thousand theaters, and I think quickly left them. And now it is out on DVD and again, no one really knew anything about it.

I also would have ignored it, but someone else let me know that it existed and was actually a spoof on The Purge films. Shit, The Purge came out in 2013. How did it take three years for them to come out with a spoof film? It is just about the first film too, so just seems weird for such a delay.

And here is clearly a scene from the ending of the movie. Spoiler?!

Carl Black (Mike Epps) just wants to make a better life for his family. Sure, they have been living in the wrong part of Chicago, he has been super in the drug game and been a real dick, but he just wants what is best for them. So when famed criminal, Key Flo (Charlie Murphy) is getting sent to prison for a few years, Carl grabs a shit ton of his cash and moves his family out of Chicago.

His family involves his new wife, Lorena (Zulay Henao) who is notably white, his daughter (Bresha Webb), his son who pretends to be a vampire (Alex Henderson) and cousin (Lil Duval). He gets them a sweet crib in Beverly Hills, a gated community, basically all rich white people.

And they are there right before The Annual Purge. Carl says rich people don’t do the purge, so they don’t have to worry. But they have made enough enemies in life to come halfway around the country to kill them. Let alone the racist old white people who don’t like their new neighbors.

Now they just have to survive the night and each other. Starring Gary Owen and George Lopez as President El Bama.

Whatever joke I made for this pic in The Purge, you should assume I said it here as well.

I went into this movie expecting a bad movie, but I honestly still expected to be better than what I was given.

Most parody films have sucked, a lot, in the recent years. They do bottom of the barrel jokes. They make references and think references to film and pop culture are good enough when it comes to humor. Meet The Blacks couldn’t even do that much.

For a 90 minute film, it dragged and dragged to set up the family and their situation. So much that the actual purge didn’t begin until about 43 minutes in, basically halfway. Shit.

And the purge part also dragged. They had a lot of different people coming after them it turns out, so each character had its own scare and introduction, story of why they were mad at Carl Black, and then altercation. It didn’t flow well at all. The film became just more and more ridiculous people looking for more petty revenge.

Damn was it boring. Damn did it suck. Damn did it no make me laugh at all once. At least Fifty Shades of Black, also out this year, made me laugh occasionally. This one has unlikable characters, unnecessary amounts of backstory and talking filler.

A good movie can make dialogue work. This dialogue just felt like they were stalling. It was a low budget film not getting a lot out of its budget.

0 out of 4.

Good news everybody! Another 50 reviews down on my website, another Milestone Review ready to announce.

Some people tell me, “Hey, Gorgon Reviews, why do you do a longer ridiculous review to celebrate every 50 reviews? No one gives a shit about 1450 or 1100.” Well, first, that is harsh. And 50 reviews, at 5 a week, means I just did 10 weeks of hard work and I’d like to do something fun.

Sure, once I get to 1500, I could start doing them less often. But there are so many supposedly bad movies from the early 2000’s that I haven’t gotten to watch, and they deserve my attention and love! Which is why I will treasure review 1450 (that is today), just as much as review 1500 (in about ten weeks).

Today I am looking at The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl, a film I knew was ridiculous when I was a kid. Spy Kids was one thing, this one was just sillypants sillypants. But I realized that there is a connection between this film and some of my other Milestone Reviews, and connections are fantastic. That’s right, a member of Twilight is involved in these films, which is all the more reason to watch this movie.

And I will dissect it like the strangest most unethical science experiment.

Max (Cayden Boyd) is our hero, and he is neither shark nor made of lava. No, he is just a boy in middle school or something. He keeps a dream journal. And sometime early into the school year, let’s say first week, he tells his totally true story about summer vacation.

You know, how he met Sharkboy (Taylor Lautner). A boy who was raised by sharks since he was like six, letting him gain gills, fins, claws, crazy teeth and everything. Self proclaimed King of the Ocean. He is friends with Lavagirl (Taylor Dooley), from Planet Drool. She is made of Lava and can shoot lava from her hands.

Anyways, they went back to Planet Drool at some point in the summer and he hasn’t seen them since.

Foreshadowing.

Guess what. His class totally doesn’t believe him. Because he is of course full of rotten cow shit. Mr. Elictricidad (George Lopez) wants him to redo the assignment I think. And this kid named Linus (Jacob Davich). He is a dick and picks on him with other kids and they steal his dream journal.

Don’t worry. One kid believes him, Marissa (Sasha Pieterse), so they are practically dating. She is also Mr. Electricidad’s daughter.

But if he bangs the teacher’s daughter, how will he also get with Lavagirl?!

Needless to say, his parents are also sick of his shit. His dad and mom (David Arquette, Kristin Davis) are probably going to get divorced because of his shitty dreams and how much he thinks they are real despite being 11 or something. They ignore his pleas in regards to his dream journal and told him to forget that stuff.

Next day at school, giant electrical storm hits and everything gets scary. No worries. Sharkboy and Lavagirl show up, much to everyone’s surprise. So they take Max on a shark rocketship up to Planet Drool, openly acknowledging that he should know how to get there since he made it all up.

Yes, Sharkboy and Lavagirl know they exist purely in Max’s head, in his day dreaming world, and they aren’t having an existential crisis. Even with this knowledge, Max doesn’t realize that everything that is happening is hogwash.

Not even magical hogwash, just normal dream based hogwash.

Oh hey, Planet Drool. Things are not as they should be. This is where all of his dreams and goals live, including the unfinished ones. Guess one, there are electrical storms here too!

Oh no! A bad guy, with a TV head named Mr. Electric (very original dreams) is ruining the place! He even has all the other kids on a roller coaster forever, keeping them awake. If they sleep, they can ruin dream world with their own dreams.

So they save the kids and battle Mr. Electric and lose terrible, putting them in the Dream Graveyard. I wish I was making this shit up.

“Okay, Mr. Lopez, just say all your lines really close to a camera lens. Trust us.” – Producer

With the help of a never finished robot named Tobor (Also Lopez), they escape there and go to a happy place of milk and cookie dreams. They realize that someone else’s dreams must also be in Planet Drool making things go to shit. Mr. Electric isn’t the only bad guy.

Lavagirl and Sharkboy feel incomplete. They don’t know where their future is going and are missing parts of their past. They need answers! But Max doesn’t remember everything. What a fuckwit. He also apparently has powers of his own, but again, he doesn’t remember it.

However, they eventually convince him to take a nap, in his dream. Sharkboy sings a terrible song. Dream dream dream dream dream, and note that they are clearly already in a dream, and he has to go to sleep in said dream.

He’s got the magic touch, some would say.

Needless to say, his quick nap gives some answers. They also find out who is behind most of the negativity. Some dick named Minus (Yes, it is Linus), who has his dream journal. Bad news for Minus is that they realized that Max is the Day Dreamer officially, so he can imagine things on the spot and they can come true.

Sure, it took Lavagirl and Sharkboy back and forth going to the brink of death for him to realize this shit, but it happened. So eventually Minus realizes he is being a dick and he is cool again.

This does not save the day. Mr. Electric gives no fucks and he says he will destroy Max where he can’t protect himself. So he goes back to Earth.

Of course he did fuck up the entire dream journal first. Whattadick, Linus, Minus, Bo-Binus.

Back on Earth, Mr. Electric intensifies the electrical storm, causing tornadoes and things start to fall apart. Mr. Electricidad is offended by the creation, since it has to have been Max’s dream come to life. But whatever. Deal with it.

Somehow Sharkboy and Lavagirl arrive to help save the day. They also make Max’s parents realize they still love each other and family is important. All in the same disaster!

I forgot to mention that on Planet Drool, there was also an Ice Princess (Marissa) with a Crystal Heart. Their plan was to find the Crystal Heart to freeze time, to allow them enough time to fix the planet. It turned out to not be too necessary. But Max brought it to Earth, so they use it to defeat Mr. Electric instead.

This is where everyone learns that dreams are what you make of them, and you should make them come true.

If you want to be the lead in an all Shark riverdancing experience, then by golly, make that shit happen!

I have a hard time believing that Robert Rodriguez, director of Planet Terror, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Sin City, thought in any capacity that this movie was decent. Yes, it came out in 2004. Yes, CGI was not as good as it is today. But this is beyond bad. This is like a $10 used bin in Wal-Mart CGI, if that existed.

The main draw to this movie would have been it’s 3D, I guess. But again, 2004 was well before Avatar came out and they changed the way 3D worked in theaters. This was probably shitty red/blue sunglasses 3D, so I am sad that I didn’t get to experience the 3D with my version. It was clear what they wanted to do with the 3D with the cheesy scenes and I am sure it came across just as bad.

Not to over-scrutinize a shitty kids movie but…the plot makes no sense and seems to fall apart the further it tries to play it out. The acting is bad on all fronts, adults and kids alike. Lautner was brought in because as a youth he was really good at martial arts, and all the flipping and jumping was actually him. He still is good at that now, but it was more impressive when he was like ten. Who would have thought that a kid with the shitty rap lullaby video would turn into a weird sex symbol.

If you hate visual messes on the screen, you will also hate this film. The entire dream world landscape was just ugly and bad.

Yeah. I may be harsh on this. But again, Rodrgiuez must know this is terrible, but he did it anyway for the lols. That is the only explanation for this mess of a pointless film.

0 out of 4.

You see, Spare Parts is a metaphor. It both describes what they used in the movie to accomplish their goals, and what they felt society thought about them. They were leftovers, trash, extra coleslaw on the side.

Maybe I am getting ahead of myself, but you know I could have described the movie that way without seeing anything about it. That title has to work that way. As soon as I read it, my cheese factor went off, and I knew it had a double meaning.

When I read a brief description, it had every thing going for it to make a classic, and lame, “How do I reach these keeeds?” movie.

And it came out in January. I should stop before I talk myself out of even writing this review.

Ah, you teach the kids by taking them AWAY from school.

Let’s head on over to Phoenix, Arizona, where it is hotter than hot, in a lot of good ways. There is a lot of immigration going on to, one could describe it as illegal. Like all of the main high school kids in our story. All of them are not legal United States citizens, so they don’t have a lot of prospects going for them. Their futures are kind of screwed.

Oscar (Carlos PenaVega) wants to join the military, but you know, can’t. So he is disappointed. For whatever reason, he wants to enter an underwater robotics competition in California. He has no team or adviser or anything. Thankfully, there is Fredi Cameron (George Lopez), a real engineer, and he is stuck substitute teaching at the school for a few months. The economy and all. He is the head of the Robotics club as per his job, but he was told no one would sign up.

So Oscar gets the idea to do the competition. They don’t have to compete against colleges, there is a high school division. Talent scouts and internships can be won there, along with a whole pile of prestige. Well, only if they can get a few other guys together. So Oscar is able to find a big nerd, Cristian (David Del Rio), a tech guy who is good at cars, Lorenzo (José Julián), and the muscle, for heavy lifting and stuff, Hector (J.R. Villarreal).

But things can’t just be that simple though, right? No, they really can. Here are some more cast members.

Jamie Lee Curtis plays our slightly eccentric, maybe on Xanax principal. Marisa Tomei is another teacher and new love interest of George Lopez and a huge team supporter. Alexa PenaVega gets to be random girl interested in Oscar, her real life husband. And Esai Morales gets to be the father who wasn’t there for his boy and never cared about his success. The makings of a truly stereotypical true story inspirational film.

I mean, just thinking about it all makes me wet too.

If it wasn’t obvious, I certainly wasn’t looking forward to watching this movie. But I did it finally just to get it out of the way.

And you know what? It wasn’t that bad. Wasn’t bad at all. Was it full of cliches and some stereotypes? Sure, damn straight. Was the true story a bit better than the movie? Yeah, also true. Knowing some of the changes can be quite annoying. But eh, movies, yada yada, we have to get over it.

Here’s the thing. The characters were pretty charismatic. At least 2 of the boys one would probably enjoy their story. The other two I didn’t really latch on to, as I don’t think they told as much of an interesting store. Huh, a very average amount of things that I like.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about Spare Parts. You will go in knowing what to expect, and by golly, it will happen. It is a decent feel good story, where the only real difference between this and other ones is its heavy Hispanic influence.

2 out of 4.

Rio 2. Did it need to happen? The first film, Rio, told a complete story. I don’t remember how I felt about the movie initially, but I quickly grew to hate it.

That’s right, I now hate the first Rio. The songs are terrible, the story is dumb. The songs are really really terrible. After one listen, I knew I could live without hearing them again (but of course I did hear them again). But whatever, I don’t have to dwell on it.

But it got a sequel because it made money, makes sense. Now they have a family of birds, doing family stuff, and living in Brazil full time. At least this time the plot won’t be an inability to fly.

No, this time it is an inability to be fly.

Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro) and Linda (Leslie Mann), the humans, are off doing human things. Roaming the Amazon rain forest, looking for cool shit. They stumble on some cool shit, but also some bad shit. I am literally done talking about them.

Needless to say, the bird type that Blu (Jesse Eisenberg) and Jewel (Anne Hathaway) are have a huge home in the middle of the rain forest, away from humans. I mean, after all, they had to come from somewhere right? That’s right, Hathaway actually voiced the same character for the sequel, unlike the travesty that occurred for Hoodwinked Too.

So they take their family and friends to find the lost tribe. Or whatever. Living in the Amazon! Yay! There they meet Jewel’s dad, Eduardo (Andy Garcia) and former lover I think, Roberto (Bruno Mars). Now that Blu knows how to fly, he has to learn how to really be a jungle bird if he wants to make sure his wife still loves him…?

Oh, and uhh. Nigel (Jemaine Clement) is back, wanting revenge. He also has a poisonous frog friend named Gabi (Kristin Chenoweth) who really loves him for whatever reason. And there are loggers. And there are parrots or something that share the forest with the Blue Mckaws.

All of the random ass bird and dog characters are also back (Jamie Foxx, George Lopez, Tracy Morgan, and Will i Am) and yes, they serve even less of a purpose in this movie.

These two, plus ant eater, plus parrots, plus loggers, means like, 10,000 villains.

Rio 2 is a strange movie. Like I just said, there are so many dang villains, it just felt excessive. Because of that fact, Nigel didn’t have a great send off. When his plan finally came true, it all was super rushed and then the movie ended.

The music for Rio 2 was a little bit better, but not amazing still. This franchise’s problem is singability. I don’t want to go and sing any of these songs later, just like the first one. Just all of them are so erratic. My favorite song was the Poison Love in which Chenoweth goes full Broadway crazy on hitting all sorts of notes. Yes, surprisingly, her character was the funniest of the whole film. She didn’t even have that much time in the movie either it felt like.

I think, somehow they went even more stereotypical than the first movie. There is even a big soccer like match with the birds, including announcers acting exactly as you’d expect.

Everything else was ehh. Was hard to keep paying attention to the film, due to how pointless the plot lines felt. I hope there isn’t a Rio 3 in the future, doing the Olympics or whatever in a couple of years. That will be stupid.

1 out of 4.

To answer the first question on everyone’s mind, yes I did dress up like a Smurf for the premiere of The Smurfs 2. It was smurftastic!

Initially, watching the trailer, I was enraged at the plot. In a nutshell, Gargamel (Hank Azaria) tried to create a couple of Smurfs, but they turned out grey and evil. He needs to know how to make them blue, to extract their essence and then become a powerful sorcerer. But they can only get the formula from Smurfette (Katy Perry), who they have to convince to be naughty and join their force.

NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY. NAUGHTY.Why does that upset me? Because I know that Smurfette was a Gargamel creation in the first place (Despite the first movie contradicting that statement). He wanted to create chaos in an all male Smurf society, by introducing a woman. That makes sense. So why did he have problems creating more Smurfs? Oh, because the movie changed things up a bit. More importantly, they explained it all and made it completely reasonable.

In this world, Smurfette was also originally gray, until Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) turned her true blue and into a happy go lucky Smurf. Yay! Now everything is okay! Only her and Papa Smurf know the formula, which is why they steal her back into the real world to beat it out of her…with kindness. It is also Smurfette’s birthday, and as the Smurfs tried to keep the party a secret, she assumed no one remembered and felt quite sad. Poor Smurfette.

Due to some miscalculations, the rescue team consists of Papa Smurf, Vanity Smurf (John Oliver), Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez), and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin).

Oh, but they aren’t alone. No, they have human friends from the first film! Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays), their son, and Patrick’s step-dad, Victor (Brendan Gleeson).

Can this rag tag group of Smurfs find and convince Smurfette they love her before time runs out? Or will the Naughties, Vexy (Christina Ricci) and Hackus (J.B. Smoove) get to her first?

But let’s not forget about dat cat.I actually left out a lot of the minor plot points in this one. You’re welcome, that means the movie will be a bit more surprising if you head out to see it. Honestly, it might be worth it if you have a family.

You don’t have to see the first film to understand this film, you just need to know that they have some human friends. Pretty standard for a family film.

What can you get out of the Smurfs? A lot of smurfin’ puns. Smurf this, smurf that, puns everywhere. Hank Azaria continues to be a smurfing excellent Gargamel. The work he puts into the voice and that character is beyond phenomenal. It is smurfing nuts!

I laughed quite a bit at some of the jokes. The fact that the plot made sense in this universe only made it better. However, there were a few smurf problems.

Vanity Smurf? I wish they killed off some Smurfs. As one of the three main personalities on the trek, being narcissistic, he ALWAYS talks. Unfortunately, everything he says is the exact same vain pun, over and over again. It got smurfing real fast. At least Grumpy Smurf had an interesting plot line. Clumsy Smurf was ignored completely. They had the chance to branch out and give us some newer Smurfs to highlight, but they didn’t.

Really, if they make another Smurfs movie, I hope they keep them in their own world. If they want, bring NPH and the other humans to them this time. Their world has plenty of lore, magic, and fun to be a great setting. Most of all, it has more than a handful of Smurfs, so everyone can fight for the metaphorical spotlight.

 

2 out of 4.

I am a bit disappointed in you, random CGI/animated movies. Why the obsession with famous people to voice your characters? If they are actually voice acting, you shouldn’t understand their normal acting voice. But alas, we must fill them up with as many big names as possible, because hey, its cheaper when its just voice acting, so why not?

I am just disappointed that I have to tag so many dang people in this movie. Shit, most of my plot is introducing the characters.

Basically, before I watch Escape From Planet Earth I just hope it is a lot closer to Escape from L.A. than Mars Needs Moms. But I guess I think that for most movies.

Finally, it looks like someone is thinking of the children.

In this movie universe, we have aliens! All different sorts, all speaking English, and all on planets of only one type. Earth is so weird. Not to mention deadly. When ever Aliens go there, they tend to never return. Seems like a big damper on the Earth thing, but sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Like if you are Scorch Supernova (Brendan Fraser), Occupation: Hero. He saves shit, didn’t you see above? He saved those babies! That somehow got on that planet with things that eat babies! Well, Scorch gets a mission to Earth, hearing of a distress signal. So he goes over, but because of having a fight with his “nerd” brother Gary (Rob Corddry), he gets captured and everyone flips his shit. His news reporting lover (Sofia Vergara) is shocked. Yes, I just wanted to throw that tag in now.

Either way, because his son is a little dickhead, and his wife Kira (Sarah Jessica Parker) is nagging about how thinking is overrated, he decides to not think, and just go and rescue his brother. Bitches, man.

Needless to say, something fishy is up. General Shanker (William Shatner) ends up capturing him too.
Puts him to work, with some other smart aliens (George Lopez, Craig Robinson, Jane Lynch). No big deal, just building the biggest weapon in the universe to “Destroy asteroids” with. Hey, he said if they build it, they can go home. Pretty great!

Hopefully everything works out at the end, and they can…Escape From Planet Earth. Fingers crossed for these poor, brave aliens. Ricky Gervais is also “James Bing” a smart computer (not even subtle guys), and Jessica Alba as the head of head of mission control?

Well, these ones don’t look enslaved. I guess that is good!

Quick! Quick! Listen to this song. Maybe listen to it three times. Remix one of them a little bit. That is what the soundtrack felt like, as I could only hear this song and some woman song smack dab in the middle. They are the only two songs played during the credits too, which claimed many more songs happened in the movie, but I definitely didn’t hear them.

“Alright, so I guess it is cheesy and childish then?” You betcha. Like a lot. Like, the jokes are people falling down or running into things.

Hey, I laughed a few times. There were some subtle jokes, or things being yelled off screen, but that was about the extent of the humor.

Instead we have a mostly “lower level” comedy, without much of anything for adults to find enjoyable when they watch with the kids. Of the other aliens, the only one that I found not annoying was the Slug, and he didn’t really get much character development besides “gross, sticky!”. The main arguments of the characters involved whether or not someone was fired or quit (when it was clearly quit. Especially since I doubt the other individual even could fire him if he wanted). The plot twists (if we call them that) were obvious about 10 minutes into the movie. The child is stupid and has bad ideas.

Heck, the film basically deglorifies intelligence. Everyone was mad at the main guy for trying to think things through before acting? Fuck that, life isn’t a race people. Thinking of course helps save the day, but they are too busy nerd joking to care.

Yet despite all this, still not as bad as Mars Needs Moms.

1 out of 4.

Definitely another movie I bought just because of who is on the cover.

Henry Poole Is Here sounds pretty much like a meaningless title to me. I guess this Henry Poole character is some sort of new neighbor, who moves into a suburban neighborhood and parties it up, causing his neighbors ire. Maybe.

By the end maybe he will learn to not be an asshole. Maybe.

Well I was wrong. Shit is a drama, and it is serious at that.

I was dead on with the asshole commentary though.

Predicting movies is hard. I rarely turn out to be right if I have never heard of it before.

Maybe calling Henry Poole (Luke Wilson) an asshole is bad. Mostly because he is going to die. Alright, we all are, but he has a terminal illness. He decides to wait out the rest of his days by moving back to his old hometown, and getting a small house in a suburban neighborhood, where he can waste away his days with pizza and liquor. Pretty much retirement. And waiting to die.

His neighbor, an old hispanic woman (Adriana Barraza) sees a face on his outer wall in his backyard, from mold or something and claim it to be a face of Jesus. She even tries to get the priest (George Lopez!?) to make it a holy site, but he doesn’t seem any proof of it. Not until that shit starts having blood appear. And maybe healing people?

One neighbor Dawn (Radha Mitchell) separated from her husband, and for about a year her daughter has not spoke. But after seeing the face she has begun to speak. A miracle! No…not really. But another girl, Patience (Rachel Seiferth), an annoying cashier at the market, can see when she visits and touches the wall. She had thick glasses before. Another ehhh moment.

But eventually all of this builds up into anger. More and more people are visiting it and bothering him at his house. He meets someone he likes, but he is going to die soon. So he destroys the wall with a sledgehammer.

Then some other things happen.

Oh hey, Cheryl Hines is also in this movie as a Realtor.

When you are going to die soon, you take every opportunity to spray neighbors with a hose.

But then I hated the ending.

This is a movie that is kind of about religion and Christianity, but also about believing in believing. Despite the large faith issues associated with it, I was very into the movie for most of it. The drama was slow at times, but I thought appropriately paced for this guys point of view.

But the ending? It killed me. The last few minutes. Just seems to go against his character completely, and felt like a cop out for the directors. Everything fell into place too neatly, and I just didn’t care anymore.

A bad ending can ruin pretty much everything. But I thought the acting was pretty well done in the movie. Definitely a lot different than I expected. And once I found out it was religious (very early on) I am surprised it kept me as interested as it did.

2 out of 4.

A live action movie about The Smurfs? How can that smurfin’ work? That doesn’t make any smurf sense. But, by the end, it was definitely pretty smurfy.

Oh don’t worry, I am done doing that.

I won’t explain the back story of Smurfs. Should be pretty public knowledge. But in their magical world, before the Blue Moon festival, a few of the smurfs accidentally get transported, along with Azrael and Gargamel (Hank Azaria)! They must figure out how to return, and you know, not turn into magic juice.

Also! Neil Patrick Harris and Jayma Mays are expecting a baby, while NPH has to make a new ad design for the cosmetics company he works for and his boss Sofia Vergara (from Modern Family).

Which smurfs made the cut into reality? Of course Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters) and Smurfette (Katy Perry). Without them, who would watch? We also got Brainy Smurf (Fred Armisen) for “problem solving”, Grumpy Smurf (George Lopez) for “lols”, and Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) for conflict building. I think Gutso Smurf (Alan Cumming) was created for the movie, but they needed a more kick ass smurf I guess. A lot more famous people for other smurfs, but those smurfs aren’t as smurf important.

This movie (or at least NPH) ask a lot of questions normal people wonder. Like if they are named after their major personality, do they get a name later in life, or born with that name. The movie answers the question, kinda.

In terms of CGI, it is pretty good. They fit the smurfs into the real world very well. Nothing (too) cheesy, and I was able to believe it.

What was pretty weird was the Guitar Hero scene, though. Guitar Hero is dead.

NPH and Jayma were fine. Azaria made a GREAT Gargamel. I was hoping for Danny DeVito to be him personally, just on looks. But Azaria just had it all going for him. Also, super cheesy. But you could hear the Moe Sizlack in his voice. Also interesting.

Story line was also interesting. I was entertained throughout, which is really all you can ask from a family centric movie. There was enough subtle jokes in there too for adults to enjoy as well.

I was going to watch this with “Smurf-O-Vision” too, as it was advertised. With an iPad/iPhone, you could download an app to go with the movie. It made it seem like if Smurfs would fly off of of screen, they’d fly onto the iPad, and other weird things. A new dimension of fun! But what really happens (I tried this for 5~ minutes, app took forever to load too) is a bunch of stupid things. Also it ruins the movie. In this version of the movie, the main smurf cast are also watching, and often the screen will shrink and you will see their reactions too. I was like “okay, as long as it doesn’t ruin the movie”. But then once it shrunk again and the director appeared and talked over dialogue, I was immediately done and calling it a failure. Just meant as a way to distract kids more so, I think.

Besides that, the movie is smurfy.

2 out of 4.

Was I entertained? Only kinda. Most of the songs in the movie end up being bad, except of course the small parts where Anne Hathaway gets to go LaadaadaaAaahAhhh. That’s a rough estimate of how her lines go. In fact, the best songs are during the closing credits. Whats up with that? Make some of them part of the movie. Most of the birds ended up being rappers too. Will i Am didn’t need to be in this. Was interesting hearing Jemaine from Flight of the Conchords though. Didn’t realize it was him until the rap part in his song. Too bad his bird character was annoying.

“Clearly you just haven’t seen my real life bird impression.”

The plot was silly. The character, Blu (how original0, voiced by Mr. Social Network himself was a nerdy out of place bird who couldn’t Jive with the happening lifestyle of Rio. He couldn’t even fly! He didn’t like the music, and he liked having an owner. What a freak. Not even Anne Hathaway in bird form could make him change his mind. It took a wacky adventure of hijinks and looking for his owner to gain his own independence. But you could have guessed that. I don’t like the tie in with Angry Birds.

I also don’t think they accurately portrayed Carinval. They make it seem like one big parade at night and that is it. Not the multi-day all day every day affair that it is. Also costumes weren’t skimpy enough. But seeing the owner in her bird outfit for Carnival was CGI-Hawt.

SHAKE those tail feathers!

2 out of 4.