Video Game Vintage Title: The Smurfs 2

The Smurfs 2

The Smurfs 2 is a 2013 American 3D family comedy film and a sequel to the 2011 film The Smurfs. It is loosely based on The Smurfs comic-book series created by the Belgian comics artist Peyo. It is the second installment of a projected trilogy, produced by Sony Pictures Animation and distributed by Columbia Pictures. The film is directed by Raja Gosnell, who helmed the first, with all the main cast returning. New cast members include Christina Ricci and J. B. Smoove as members of the Naughties, and Brendan Gleeson as Patrick Winslow's stepfather. The film was released on July 31, 2013 and is dedicated to Jonathan Winters, who voiced Papa Smurf and died on April 11, 2013.

A third installment, The Smurfs 3, is in the works and is scheduled to be released on August 14, 2015.

The Smurfs 2 Plot

Smurfette is having nightmares about betraying her fellow Smurfs and turning them over to Gargamel to be captured. Meanwhile, the Smurfs are preparing a surprise party for Smurfette's birthday, but as Smurfette tries to find out what her fellow Smurfs are planning, none of them are saying a word. She takes this to mean that everyone forgot her birthday.

In France, Gargamel is now a celebrity, amazing people with his sorcery, but he sees that he is running low on the Smurf essence that gives him his magic powers. With his new creations, evil smurfs called Naughties Vexy and Hackus, Gargamel plans on opening a portal to the Smurf village by using the Eiffel tower as a conduit so that he can kidnap Smurfette and, through her, get Papa Smurf's secret formula for creating Smurfs. However, as the portal he created is not big enough for him to go through, Gargamel takes Vexy and sends her through to the portal to grab Smurfette and bring her to Paris.

One of the Smurfs witnesses the abduction of Smurfette and informs Papa Smurf. Papa Smurf uses his magic to create crystals that would allow several of his Smurfs to travel directly to Patrick Winslow's residence in New York City in order to get his help to rescue Smurfette. Papa originally intended for Brainy, Hefty, and Gutsy to use the crystals, but instead through an accident Clumsy, Grouchy and Vanity use them. Papa and the three Smurfs arrive in the apartment right after the celebration of Blue's fourth birthday where they meet both the Winslows' young boy and Patrick's stepfather Victor Doyle, a man who is a constant embarrassment to Patrick. The Smurfs soon discover where Gargamel is, and so they and the Winslows set off for Paris in order to find him.

After their arrival in Paris, Patrick and his wife Grace work together with Victor to distract Gargamel during one of his performances while the Smurfs sneak backstage in order to find Smurfette, only to discover what Gargamel is planning. At the same time, Smurfette escapes from the prison and Vexy and her partner Hackus chase after her. Upon her return to Gargamel's hotel suite with the Naughties, Gargamel presents her with a tiny dragon wand as a feigned act of kindness, claiming that he was Smurfette's father all along and that Papa Smurf had no interest in her.

Smurfette is still reluctant to give Gargamel the formula to turn a naughty into a smurf until she sees that the Naughties are dying due to a lack of Smurf essence. Faced without an alternative to save them, Smurfette quickly writes the formula down and Gargamel uses it to turn the Naughties into real Smurfs. Immediately after they become Smurfs, the evil wizard puts them into his Smurf-a-lator so he can carry out the rest of his plan.

Meanwhile, Patrick, Victor, and the Smurfs work together to rescue Smurfette. The Smurfs are soon captured and put into the Smurfalator, powering Gargamel's "La Wanda" (a large-sized dragon wand). Patrick and Victor arrive just in time to destroy the Smurfalator, causing the naughty-to-smurf formula to be destroyed in blue pixie dust that in turn vanquishes the secret formula. Gargamel has gained enough power to use his new wand against the Smurfs and their allies. Vexy and Hackus team up with the Smurfs against their former master and use the new wand to blast him away. He then falls onto the Notre Dame Cathedral where he accidentally brings a stone vulture to life which then throws him to the top of the Eiffel Tower where fireworks then set off, sending him in the air. Vexy and Hackus, the two new Smurfs, bid farewell to the Winslows and return home with the rest of the Smurfs.

In two post-credit sequences, Gargamel and Azrael are pulled into the portal, sending them back to their castle, and they later have a fight.

Reception
The Smurfs 2 received negative reviews from critics. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 14% approval rating with an average rating of 4/10 based on 87 reviews. The website's consensus reads, "Like its predecessor, Smurfs 2 may amuse small children, but it's largely an unambitious, charm-free collection of slapstick gags and one-liners." Another review aggregation website Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 top reviews from mainstream critics, calculated a score of 33 out of 100 based on 27 reviews. The film earned an "A-" from audiences polled by CinemaScore. The Smurfs 2 was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off or Sequel.

Justin Lowe of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a negative review, saying "Beyond a few chuckle-worthy one-liners and some amusing visual comedy, there's not much to engage adults, although the wee ones should be distracted enough." Matt Patches of Time Out New York gave the film two out of five stars, saying "Patient Adult Smurfs will be checking their watches as Excitable Child Smurfs lose themselves in the high jinks." Frank Lovece of Newsday gave the film two out of four stars, saying "Not Smurftastic, but not Smurfawful, either." Loren King of The Boston Globe gave the film two out of four stars, saying "That the mushroom- dwelling blue creatures still manage to be endearing even in their second big-screen extravaganza (in 3-D, no less) is about the best that can be said of "Smurfs 2." Peter Howell of the Toronto Star gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "The Smurfs 2 has everything you hated about the first movie, and more." Kyle Smith of the New York Post gave the film one out of four stars, saying "They're as lethally uninteresting as Barney the Purple Dinosaur, though a Godzilla-style "Barney vs. Smurfs" is a movie I would pay to see, provided maximum destruction were promised."

Mark Olsen of the Los Angeles Times gave the film two and a half stars out of five, saying "Right down to the brute functionality of its title, "The Smurfs 2" may be the platonic ideal of a major studio sequel - no markedly better or worse than the first and with just enough difference to lay claim to being something new." Joe Williams of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch gave the film a positive review, saying "It's not exactly "Ratatouille," but this quasi-animated movie makes an amusing late-summer vacation from superheroes and shoot-'em-ups." Claudia Puig of USA Today gave the film one and a half stars out of four, saying "This insipid, and sometimes awkward, blend of animation, computer generation and live action wastes a ton of talent and lacks a true sense of whimsy." Jordan Hoffman of the New York Daily News gave the film two out of five stars, saying "Voicing Papa Smurf here turned out, alas, to be comedian Jonathan Winters' final role. (A crueler fate than Orson Welles signing off with 1986's animated "The Transformers: The Movie"? You be the judge.)" Alonso Duralde of The Wrap gave the film a negative review, saying "The Smurfs 2 will keep a child reasonably entertained for 105 minutes--but so will a large, empty cardboard box. The box is more likely to stimulate a child's imagination and less likely to contain jokes about testicles."

Sean O'Connell of The Washington Post gave the film two out of five stars, saying "I found "The Smurfs 2" to be more enjoyable and far less obnoxious than . This, of course, is like saying having a cavity filled is preferable to a root canal, but in the dog days of the summer blockbuster season, beggars can't be smurfers." Peter Hartlaub of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the film zero stars out of four, saying "There's a dark and gratuitously negative vibe to "The Smurfs 2" that makes it unfit even for the undiscriminating young moviegoers that made the first one a hit." Bill Goodykoontz of The Arizona Republic gave the film two out of five stars, saying "There are a few laughs here and there, along with a couple of jokes for grown-ups uncomfortably squeezed in. But this is a movie made for two groups: small children and people who have fond memories of the TV show. For them, it�ll be fun, and the assurance of a third �Smurfs� scheduled for 2015 will be welcome news." Nick Schager of The Village Voice gave the film a negative review, saying "Its tolerant messages remain buried beneath lame pop-culture references, hectic slapstick, fart jokes, and endless Smurf-puns that-Azaria's funny, over-the-top cartoon villainy aside-make one pine for the Smurfpocalypse."

Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times gave the film two out of five stars, saying "The movie doesn't have the wit of the first installment and seems as if it might be hard for young children to follow, though who knows with young children?" Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a C, saying "The trouble with this stunted sequel is that the doughy, blobby-hatted Smurfs are mostly window dressing for an abrasive slapstick bash built around a tiresome kidnap plot." Bruce Ingram of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of five stars, saying "The Smurfs 2 probably isn�t any worse than you might expect. On the other hand, it�s almost certainly not any better. It�s just a matter of figuring out how much punishment you�re willing to endure for the sake of the small child you�re taking to the movies." Kevin McFarland of The A.V. Club gave the film a D+, saying "The film undermines its rudimentary plot points at every turn with base humor. By marginally addressing the Smurfette Problem, Smurfs 2 is at least slightly superior to the absolutely dire first film, but it remains a series for kids whose parents can�t just pop in a DVD of something better."