The Smurfs 2

The Smurfs 2 is a 2013 American 3D live-action/computer-animated 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 second film in the Smurfs film series, produced by Columbia Pictures, Sony Pictures Animation, Kerner Entertainment Company, and Hemisphere Media Capital, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. 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.

Plot
Hoping to harness the magical Smurf-essence, the evil wizard Gargamel creates a pair of Smurflike creatures, called Naughties. However, only a real Smurf can give Gargamel what he wants, so he kidnaps Smurfette to force her to cast a spell that will transform the Naughties into Smurfs. Papa, Clumsy, and the rest of the Smurfs reunite with their human friends Patrick (Neil Patrick Harris) and Grace (Jayma Mays) to rescue Smurfette from the wizard's clutches.

Why This Movie Is Not Smurfy At All

 * 1) This movie is far less faithful to the source material than what made The Smurfs franchise good, or even any of the good qualities of the first film. Not to mention, there are barely even any Smurfs making full appearances in this movie. But unlike the first film (where it was set in New York), it is set in a different location, which is Paris.
 * 2) Blue Winslow, while cute, is annoying and has an extremely cringe-worthy voice. Aside from that, he contributed absolutely nothing to the plot whatsoever other than to state the obvious of what's happening through the majority of the film.
 * 3) The concept of bad Smurfs (aka Naughties) being created, although interesting, was poorly executed.
 * 4) Much of the plot is recycled from the first film, which was already a bad film before.
 * 5) The attempts at humor are poor and even worse than in the original film, like the infamous scene where Grouchy Smurf makes horrendous fart bubbles in a sink, followed also by a childish phrase said by this one.
 * 6) False advertising: On the DVD case poster, Brainy Smurf is in Paris as the main characters, but he never appears and doesn't gets a major role as the main characters in the movie.
 * 7) Patrick Winslow was heavily flanderized in this film into a whiny manchild who is prejudiced against his step-father for releasing his bird due to Patrick himself having a feather allergy to his old pet bird, and is extremely unlikeable during the beginning of this movie and his reason for hating his step-father is completely unjustified and pathetic, since Victor is established as a really nice guy. He also has no sympathy for his family at all and treats his step-father like a butt monkey throughout the whole film which makes Patrick come across as selfish and easy to hate.
 * 8) A pointless side-plot of Victor turning into a duck, thanks to Gargamel, which leads to a very cringe-worthy and inappropriate scene where he transforms back to normal in the air and falls down naked while trying to carry the smurfs.
 * 9) This film is extremely mean-spirited. The Smurfs act like total jerks to Smurfette, even though they were only doing that for her surprise Smurfday.
 * 10) There is little to no character development for the majority of the characters, mainly from Vexy and Hackus, who never really get a proper introduction and were never seen or mentioned again after this movie, notably during the events of mh:greatestmovies:Smurfs: The Lost Village, or any Smurfs media at that.
 * 11) Gargamel's funny charm and wonderful spirit from the previous film was completely downgraded here, as he is far more weak with his jokes and his performance is nowhere near as good as in the previous film, as Hank Azaria was probably fed up with playing the character due to how much he hated being in these films and it's obvious with the way how he acts when compared to the previous film where he had fun with the performance and the character overall.
 * 12) Just like the first film, there are quite a few unnecessary product placements, including one where Azrael has a Facebook account.
 * 13) Similar to the first film, it has an unfitting setting that takes place in modern times instead of a magical fairy-tale setting like the source material.
 * 14) Horrible scenes, like the unnecessarily loud and aggravating barks scene, the Grouchy's disgusting fart bubbles scene and the corn dog scene.
 * 15) As mentioned stated, many scenes are recycled from other movies. Aside from copying plot points from the first movie, the plot itself is also a blatant rip-off from Finding Nemo.
 * 16) Plot hole: During the end credits of The Smurfs, Smurf Village was being rebuilt in New York's image; however, in this film, the entire village is shown in its original state making it more like a reboot.
 * 17) During the scene where Smurfette, Vexy, and Hackus ride the storks, an unknown song can be heard playing throughout. And to make matters worse, the song's title is not confirmed, leaving several people to backlash at the latter to point out what the song is called.
 * 18) The Smurfs looks like blue Shreks again because their designs from the previous film with uncannily realistic facial features that don't fit them at all are still present, though they are better here than in the previous film due to having slightly more cartoonier features which the previous films lacked.
 * 19) Way too many unneeded pop-culture references, including the references of Surface, The Empire Strikes Back, and Star Wars. It also uses pop-culture songs, such as Vacation.
 * 20) This film also ended Jonathan Winter's career on a sour note, since this was the last movie that he ever had a role in before because he passed away on April 11, 2013, only nine days after he had finished recording his dialogue for Papa Smurf.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) Heitor Pereira's score is solid. Plus, "Ooh La La" by Britney Spears is somewhat decent, albeit really not as good as "Ready to Go (Get Me Out of My Mind)" by Panic! at the Disco
 * 2) A few genuinely funny moments, like a gargoyle biting Gargamel's butt leading him to scream like a little girl and Grouchy's screaming quote: "I can't see!!! I can't see!! I'm on a darkness lifeless planet that smells like corn dogs!!!" while jump-scaring Victor.
 * 3) Still, a few of the actors give decent performances, such as Jacob Trembley, who did very well playing the role of Blue despite how pointless and annoying the character is. Following this, he would grow up to appear in many movies, like Luca, Room, Good Boys, Wonder and more.
 * 4) The idea of having evil Smurfs (known as Naughties) is interesting despite the poor execution.
 * 5) Like any other Sony Pictures Animation movie, The CGI is still great, and even a slight improvement over the original, although Clumsy can seem a bit weaker here.
 * 6) Patrick and Victor eventually reconcile while saving the Smurfs.
 * 7) Grace is still at least a likable character and wasn't flanderized like Patrick was.
 * 8) * As mentioned above, Blue Winslow is kind of cute.
 * 9) The scene where Smurfette's wand backfires and sends Papa Smurf and all of his Smurfs through a window is very heartbreaking.
 * 10) * Gargamel lets Vexy and Hackus starve to death which grieves Smurfette is also very emotional and epic. Them turning blue afterward is kind of heartwarming.
 * 11) Whilst there is still an excessive amount of product placements in the film, they are not quite as bad as the amount of ones that there were in the first film.

Reception
The Smurfs 2 received much worse reviews than the first movie by critics and audiences for its poor attempts at humor, characters, plot, screenplay, and perceived lack of fidelity to its source material, despite some audiences considering the film as a slight improvement over its predecessor while most critics considered it as its predecessor all over again. The review aggregator website mh:rottenwebsites: Rotten Tomatoes reported a 14% approval rating with an average rating of 4/10 based on 94 reviews; making it the second lowest-rated film ever produced by Sony Pictures Animation on the site behind The Emoji Movie. 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.". On Metacritic, the film has weighted a score of 34 out of 100, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews." The film earned an "A-" from audiences polled by CinemaScore.

Box Office
The film did nowhere near as much as the previous film, it was declared a Box Office Disappointment in terms of how much it made, doing a total of $347.5 million units at the box office against a $105 million dollar budget with the film not meeting Sony's own expectations on how much it would make at the Box Office, as it bombed majorly in Europe and faced a lot of competition with PG-rated films released during 2013, which caused the film to underperform slightly with it resulting the soon to be third film in the Live Action Smurfs movie series getting cancelled due to the disappointing Box Office results of the second film.

Awards & Nominations
It was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Prequel, Remake, Rip-off, or Sequel but lost to The Lone Ranger.

Trailers
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Reviews
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