As we enter the dog days of summer with kids nearly bored enough to go back to school, is The Smurfs a welcome repreive for parents? The answer appears to be a resounding "No!"
"In mocking the Smurfcentricity of that original show, the movie rises above its source material just enough to dull the dread many adults share in realizing their kids will want to see it."
— Roger Moore, Chicago Tribune
"Actual kids may find this fun, but for adults, watching The Smurfs may feel a little too much like trying to wrangle an overcrowded kiddie birthday party."
— Tasha Robinson, Onion AV Club
"...recycl(es) discarded bits from other celluloid Happy Meals like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Garfield, and Hop into something half animated, half live action, and all careful studio calculation."
— Keith Staskiewicz, Entertainment Weekly
"...a boring, lazy, clumsily staged, overly lit, unnecessarily 3D-ed contraption..."
— Ed Gonzalez, Slant Magazine
"It's a Smurfs movie. What did you expect?"
— L. Thompson, E
"Whatever charm or quaint benevolence the Belgian cartoon figures used to have has been scrubbed clean by a Hollywood... By the end, the obnoxious Alvin and the Chipmunks starts to look like a stroke of genius."
— Bill Gibron, filmcritic.com