First Look At 'The Smurfs' Makes Us Hope For PG-13 Rating, No Disneyfication
Even before we knew what "smokin' somethin'" meant, we knew that the creators of The Smurfs were smokin' a little somethin' somethin'. After all, anyone who would create a world inhabited by little blue men who spoke in a a trippy language and lived in magic mushrooms had to be one of those "Mary Jane smokin' hippies" that our parents always warned us about. So after seeing some stills from the upcoming Smurfs movie, we're enthralled to see that the French animators who are making the film sure seem to be smokin' somethin' too. Seems as though this adaptation will finally tell the tale the way it was meant to be told: darkly.
Based on this first look at the Smurfs and Mushroom Village, coupled with producer Jordan Kerner's earlier commentary on the flick's vision, we're starting to feel confident that we won't have another Alvin And The Chipmunks disaster on our hands. Kerner says he wants to make The Smurfs feel like an "animated Lord of the Rings ... we'll learn [more] about Gargamel and Smurf Soup and how all that began and what really goes on in that castle. What his backstory really was." Considering the fact that The Smurfs were originally a parody on the (very serious!) language war between the French and Danish people of Belgium and that director Colin Brady has films like ET and Magnolia on his resume, we can't help but be optimistic that they'll get this one right.
