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Review: For Better Or Worse, The Smurfs Movie Is A New York Movie
By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 29, 2011
Modified Jul 29, 2011
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Jul 29, 2011
Modified Jul 29, 2011
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As the angry Smurf in Columbus Circle portended earlier this week: The Smurfs have arrived in town, and they brought a 3D movie with them. We saw it, and it is pretty much exactly the corny joke-filled, blue-toned combination of Enchanted and Alvin and the Chipmunks that you expected/feared. The little ones will love it, and the grownups will be grateful that it is less than an hour and a half (86 minutes!). La-la-la-la-la-la-sing-a-happy-song. We could sit here and list the movie's few charms (Hank Azaria, Neil Patrick Harris, the CGI cat that steals the movie) and its many, many, many grating uses of the word "smurf" ("Smurftamistic," "Pessasmurftic," the awful "Smurf This Way" Guitar Hero version of "Walk This Way") but that is like shooting little blue fish in a little blue barrel. Instead we'd like to take a minute to point out the one thing the movie does surprisingly not badly: New York City.
Remember how the city declared this week Smurf Week? And how last summer the movie was shooting all over town? Yeah, well, those two are not unrelated! The movie's plot, thin as it might be, involves a group of the little blue creatures falling through a portal into Central Park and then trying to get home. Along the way they go through the city—and New York looks good!
At one point Neil Patrick Harris hops in a cab and asks to go to 7th Street and Avenue A. Being sticklers for accuracy in our children's movies (aren't we all?), we were dreading seeing Doogie Howser then hop out of the taxi on the Upper East Side, but he doesn't. Instead he actually gets out on 7th Street. Sure, the roof of his apartment is clearly further uptown, but still! You even get a glimpse of the line going out the door of popular 7th Street sandwich shop Porchetta. As for other New York locales? F.A.O. Schwartz makes an obligatory cameo (Big did it better), Rockefeller Center looks great, Central Park's Belvedere Castle plays a crucial role (though many of the Central Park scenes were filmed in Prospect Park), the Top of the Rock looks gorgeous and the Housing Works bookstore on Crosby Street turns out to be a great stand-in for a magic shop. Oh, and there is a cute comparison between the movie's titular creatures and a Blue Man Group taxi ad. La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
Beyond physical New York landmarks, the Smurfs manage to cram in a few famous New Yorkers, too. No Donald Trumps, Michael Bloombergs, or Al Sharptons—instead Joan Rivers, Liz Smith and Michael Musto all have cameos, because you know how the kids clamor to see more Liz Smith on the big screen! And, just in time for the return of Project Runway, Tim Gunn is in the movie...acting? He even kinda (kinda) makes it work.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la. Oh god, shoot us now. That smurfing song won't get out of our smurfing heads.
Tagged
new york movies
smurfs
the smurfs
Garth Johnston
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