---
title: "The Smurfs"
year: 2011
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/the-smurfs"
fi1m_id: "the-smurfs"
imdb_id: "tt0472181"
tmdb_id: 41513
wikidata_id: "Q454398"
fi1m_score: 37
critics_score: 38
critics_reviews: 15
published: "2026-10-05T12:14:39.014569+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-05T12:14:39.410726+00:00"
region: "BG"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# The Smurfs (2011)

Directed by Raja Gosnell · 1h 43m · Animation, Family, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy

## Identity

The Smurfs

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/the-smurfs
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** the-smurfs
- **IMDb ID:** tt0472181
- **TMDB ID:** 41513
- **Wikidata ID:** Q454398
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0472181/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/41513, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q454398

**Fi1m score: 37** · Critics 38 from 15 reviews

*In a sentence:* Hank Azaria and a cat carry 103 minutes between them, and the cat is a special effect

> Raja Gosnell drops six Smurfs into Manhattan and finds one joke, one committed villain and a great deal of product to sell. Hank Azaria and his cat are worth watching; the blue people they are chasing are not, and the children deserved more care.

## Synopsis

In a Smurf village hidden deep in a forest, the wizard Gargamel (Hank Azaria) and his cat Azrael (Frank Welker) at last find the way in. In the scramble to escape, Clumsy Smurf (Anton Yelchin) runs the wrong way, and Papa Smurf (Jonathan Winters), Smurfette (Katy Perry) and three others follow him through a waterfall and out of a blue-moon portal into Central Park, New York. They take shelter in the flat of Patrick Winslow (Neil Patrick Harris), an advertising man with a campaign due for his boss, cosmetics owner Odile Anjelou (Sofía Vergara), and a wife, Grace (Jayma Mays), who is expecting their first child. Papa Smurf needs the next blue moon to get everyone home. Gargamel has come through the portal too, and he wants the Smurfs for his magic.

## Review

Raja Gosnell has taken the blue people Peyo drew in 1958 and dropped six of them into Manhattan for 103 minutes. A storybook village meets the real city, and the comedy comes from the gap. Here it does not work, because the film has no interest in the gap beyond a dozen jokes about the word smurf, and because the city it lands in is less a place than a shop window. It is poor, and we can see who it was made for, and they were owed more thought than this.

Hank Azaria is the reason to keep watching. He plays Gargamel in a bald cap and a false nose, hunched inside Rita Ryack’s patched brown robe, and he has decided to play it enormous: every line a proclamation, every stumble a tragedy. His only equal is Azrael, the cat, a real animal given an animated face that can register weariness. We laughed twice, both times at the cat, and felt a little low about it afterwards, because a cat rolling its eyes was the only thing on screen anyone had timed properly.

The Smurfs are harder to like. Jay Scherick, David N. Weiss, J. David Stem and David Ronn share the screenplay credit, and between them they have come up with one joke: Smurfs say smurf in place of other words. Patrick asks them to stop. It carries on for another hour. Jonathan Winters gives Papa Smurf a gentle, tired warmth that belongs in a better film. Katy Perry’s Smurfette gets the liveliest material and a wink at one of her own songs aimed over the children’s heads. Anton Yelchin’s Clumsy is the one with a story, and it is the story every family film has: the one who gets things wrong will, at the critical moment, get one thing right.

Neil Patrick Harris works hard as Patrick Winslow, an advertising man with a campaign due and a baby on the way, and he does what good comic actors do with weak material, which is to react as though it were strong. Jayma Mays is given nothing but kindness to play and plays it. Sofía Vergara’s Odile is written as a monster of a boss and then forgotten.

The craft lets everyone down. The village, which Bill Boes designed, is the one thing made with care: tiny doors, thatched caps on the mushroom houses, moss on the steps. Once the Smurfs reach New York, Phil Meheux shoots them in flat daylight, and they stop being characters and become blue plastic figures held up in front of a street. Their feet never quite meet the pavement. Sabrina Plisco cuts the chases as a series of near misses in traffic, and because nothing on screen has weight, nobody is ever in danger. Heitor Pereira’s score bounces along underneath, cheerful and unspecific.

Then there is the selling. Patrick works in advertising, and the film seems to have taken the hint. Scenes are set in shops whose names fill the frame, the Smurfs discover a games console and play it at length, and New York is a run of landmarks with the people removed. We were bored by the middle hour, and then we were irritated, because a U certificate is a promise to parents that the film is for their children and not for whoever paid for the toy shop.

Gosnell has done this before, with [*Scooby-Doo*](https://film.one/film/scooby-doo) in 2002, and he is competent at it: the film is coherent and nobody gets lost. The genre’s standard is [*Who Framed Roger Rabbit*](https://film.one/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit), from 1988, where drawn figures stood on real floors and cast real shadows, and next to it this one looks careless. Most critics have landed near where we have, the kinder ones calling it harmless and the harsher ones painful. We are closer to harmless, just.

If you have a child under six who loves the blue people, this will keep them still for an hour and a half, and Azaria will give you something to watch while it does. Anyone older will be checking the clock around the time the cat does.

*Fi1m score 37, published 5 October 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics find The Smurfs lazy and cynical, and none of the fifteen reviews recommends it. The complaints cluster around the script: weak jokes, tired Smurf wordplay, a dull advertising-executive subplot and heavy product placement. The one department that draws consistent praise is Hank Azaria’s Gargamel and his animated cat, which Total Film and The AV Club single out as the most entertaining thing on screen. Slant Magazine also admires the design of the village and the Smurfs themselves, even while judging the human characters a failure.

The spread is wide at the bottom. A handful of critics, IndieWire among them, call it tolerable and mildly self-aware, a harmless summer diversion for small children. Others, the Guardian and Los Angeles Times chief among them, see something closer to a disaster, faulting the clumsy fit between animation and live action and the decision to treat the Smurfs as mythical. Nobody argues it works for adults.

## Straight answers

**Is The Smurfs worth watching?**

*The Smurfs* is not worth watching unless you have a child under six who loves the blue people, and we scored it 37. Hank Azaria's enormous Gargamel and his eye-rolling cat are the only things on screen anyone timed properly; the Smurfs themselves have one joke, and the film spends much of its 103 minutes selling shops, consoles and landmarks to children under a U certificate.

**How long is The Smurfs, and what is it rated?**

*The Smurfs* runs 1h 43m. It is an animation and family film.

**Where can I watch The Smurfs in Bulgaria?**

*The Smurfs* is streaming on Netflix in Bulgaria, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from лв 2.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**What should I watch after The Smurfs?**

After *The Smurfs*, try [*Paddington*](https://film.one/film/paddington) (2014, Fi1m 84): A small creature in a big city, done with the patience this film lacks. Then [*Who Framed Roger Rabbit*](https://film.one/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit) (1988, Fi1m 89): Cartoons and people in the same room, and you believe every shadow; and [*Enchanted*](https://film.one/film/enchanted) (2007, Fi1m 76): The storybook-meets-Manhattan idea, played by people who seem to be enjoying it.

### Reviews we read (15)

- **IndieWire**, Christopher Campbell (65/100, inferred): Campbell finds the film a tolerable, mildly improved take on the city-set fish-out-of-water comedy. He praises its self-aware handling of the Smurfs, while criticizing the pervasive product placement and tourism advertising. [Read](https://www.indiewire.com/news/general/the-smurfs-gets-lost-inside-the-biggest-product-placement-ever-226728/)
- **Screen Daily**, Tim Grierson (64/100, inferred): Screen Daily’s page identifies this as Tim Grierson’s review, but the paywall hides his verdict. No praise or complaint is visible in the supplied text. [Read](https://www.screendaily.com/the-smurfs/5030318.article)
- **The New York Times** (64/100, inferred): The page could not be accessed, so its critical verdict is unavailable. No specific praise or criticism can be verified from the available content. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/movies/the-smurfs-review.html)
- **Total Film**, Rosie Fletcher (3/5): The review finds the film diverting and weird but harmless. It singles out Hank Azaria and his sidekick cat as the movie’s most entertaining elements, while calling the Smurfs forgettable. [Read](https://www.gamesradar.com/the-smurfs-1-review/)
- **The AV Club**, Tasha Robinson (D+): Robinson finds the film exhausting and cynically calculated, with little appeal for adults without children. She singles out Hank Azaria’s committed Gargamel performance as a bright spot amid fake-looking effects and strained comedy. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/the-smurfs-1798169118)
- **Time Out**, David Jenkins (2/5): Jenkins gives the film two out of five stars, indicating an unfavorable verdict. The accessible page provides no review text, so it does not identify a specific element praised or criticized. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/the-smurfs)
- **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (1.5/4): Gonzalez condemns the film as a boring, lazy failure that drains the magic from the Smurfs. He praises the detailed design of the village and Smurfs, but says the human characters sink the film. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/the-smurfs/)
- **Evening Standard**, The Standard (30/100, inferred): The critic finds the film likely to please children but a struggle to sit through. They single out its coherent story as a modest strength, while the Smurfs’ journey proves tedious. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/the-smurfs-in-3d-review-7426227.html)
- **The Hollywood Reporter**, THR Staff (20/100, inferred): The critic finds the film numbingly generic and largely mirthless. They single out its uninspired script and weak jokes as the main shortcomings. [Read](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-reviews/smurfs-film-review-216564/)
- **Vulture**, Logan Hill (15/100, inferred): Hill dismisses the film as lazy, clueless, and built around tired franchise jokes. He particularly criticizes its crude smurf wordplay and the uninteresting advertising-executive subplot. [Read](https://www.vulture.com/2011/07/review_the_smurfs_is_a_smurfin.html)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Betsy Sharkey (10/100, inferred): Sharkey calls the film a 3-D disaster rather than a family comedy. She particularly faults its flat-footed chase scenes and clumsy interaction between animation and live action. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-xpm-2011-jul-29-la-et-smurfs-20110729-story.html)
- **The Guardian**, Peter Bradshaw (10/100, inferred): Bradshaw delivers a scathing verdict, dismissing the film as painfully bad despite its framing as harmless summer silliness. He singles out the reimagining of the Smurfs as mythical rather than fictional as one of its many horrors. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/aug/11/smurfs-review)
- **Digital Spy**, Ben Lee (2): The critic finds the film underwhelming, lazy and too content to play it safe. They praise its strong voice cast and occasional moments of genuine humor, while noting Neil Patrick Harris’s efforts to lift the weak screenplay. [Read](https://www.digitalspy.com/movies/a333939/the-smurfs-review/)
- **The Playlist**, The Playlist Staff (D-): The critic finds the film cynical, uncreative, and poorly aimed at both children and adults. They single out the amusingly animated cat as a rare bright spot. [Read](https://theplaylist.net/review-the-smurfs-hopes-your-kids-like-aerosmith-bodily-functions-tim-gunn-20110728/)
- **Eye for Film**, Jennie Kermode (20/100, inferred): Kermode finds the film apologetic, uninspired and unlikely to entertain anyone beyond very young children. She praises Smurfette’s lively characterization, but faults the clumsy humor and story that has lost its heart. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/the-smurfs-film-review-by-jennie-kermode)

## Details

- **Director:** Raja Gosnell
- **Director:** Raja Gosnell
- **Screenplay:** J. David Stem, Jay Scherick, David Ronn, David N. Weiss
- **Story:** David N. Weiss, J. David Stem
- **Cinematography:** Phil Meheux
- **Editor:** Sabrina Plisco
- **Music:** Heitor Pereira
- **Production design:** Bill Boes
- **Costume design:** Rita Ryack
- **Producer:** Jordan Kerner
- **Cast:** Hank Azaria as Gargamel; Neil Patrick Harris as Patrick Winslow; Jayma Mays as Grace Winslow; Jonathan Winters as Papa Smurf (voice); Katy Perry as Smurfette (voice); Anton Yelchin as Clumsy Smurf (voice); Sofía Vergara as Odile Anjelou; Tim Gunn as Henri
- **Runtime:** 1h 43m
- **First release (the US):** 24 July 2011
- **Genres:** Animation, Family, Adventure, Comedy, Fantasy
- **Budget:** $110 million
- **Box office:** $564 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc0dljW2ZaU

## Where to watch in Bulgaria

- Netflix: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: rent лв 2.99, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy лв 7.99, sd

*Checked 2026-10-05.*

Also available in: AE, AR, AT, AU, BE, BG, BR, CA, CH, CL, CO, CZ, DE, DK, EC, EE, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HK, HR, HU, ID, IE, IL, IN, IT, JP, KR, LT, MX, MY, NL, NO, NZ, PA, PE, PH, PL, PT, RO, RS, SE, SG, SI, SK, TH, TR, UA, US, VN, ZA. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## If you liked this

- *Paddington* (2014), Fi1m 84: A small creature in a big city, done with the patience this film lacks — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/paddington.md)
- *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (1988), Fi1m 89: Cartoons and people in the same room, and you believe every shadow — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/who-framed-roger-rabbit.md)
- *Enchanted* (2007), Fi1m 76: The storybook-meets-Manhattan idea, played by people who seem to be enjoying it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/enchanted.md)
- *Ernest & Celestine* (2012), Fi1m 84: Franco-Belgian animation with the watercolour warmth the Smurfs once had — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/ernest-and-celestine.md)
- *Fantastic Mr. Fox* (2009), Fi1m 84: A family comedy about tiny creatures and a large enemy, with actual jokes — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/fantastic-mr-fox.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/the-smurfs