‘Worst film ever’ ripped apart by critics in one-star reviews

A movie freshly released into cinemas on Friday, ready to take advantage of summer blockbuster audiences, has been savaged by critics as one of the worst films they’ve ever seen.

The family film has attracted a wave of one-star reviews deriding it as ‘punishing’, ‘painfully sentimental’ and ‘kryptonite to comedy and entertainment’.

Smurfs, which has rested most of most of its marketing on solely on music superstar and billionaire entrepreneur Rihanna’s involvement, has been in cinemas worldwide for less than two full days.

And while fan reaction has started to trickle in during opening weekend with a seemingly pretty positive marker of 64% on review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, professional critics have been far less kind, putting it at 21%.

And those who hated Smurfs, really, really hated it, with several outlets awarding it the lowest rating possible.

This is despite Paramount Pictures best efforts, casting Rihanna as Smurfette and backing her up with a star-studded wealth of vocal talent from the likes of John Goodman, Nick Offerman, Kurt Russell, Sandra Oh, Octavia Spencer, Natasha Lyonne, Jimmy Kimmel, Nick Kroll, Hannah Waddingham and James Corden.

Based on the Belgian comic book series created in 1958, this is the characters’ sixth feature-length film, billed as a musical fantasy comedy and following a Smurf in the village called No Name (Corden) as he has an identity crisis over his hopes to become a magician – before disaster, in multiple dimensions, ensues as Papa Smurf (Goodman) is kidnapped.

‘One of the worst films I’ve ever seen,’ The Telegraph’s Robbie Collin declared in his one-star review, where he also called it ‘a colossal pile of ‘Smurf’’ and asked: ‘Will it keep the kids quiet for an hour and a half? Probably not, though it is loud enough that you won’t be able to hear them complain.’

Johnny Oleksinski for The New York Post was even less impressed, awarding the film zero out of four stars according to Rotten Tomatoes and confidently describing it as ‘one of the worst movies you’ll see all year’.

‘I have just endured a film in which an army of little creatures cruelly tortures humans. No, not Gremlins. That’s a good movie. It was Smurfs. And the punished human was me. I Smurf-ing loathed it,’ he griped.

Discussing the film’s music, which includes an original song from Rihanna, Friend of Mine, he added: ‘The interminable dirge boasts such inspired lyrics as ‘Does happy ever after really ever happen?’. Answer: Not for anyone unlucky enough to have bought a ticket to Smurfs.’

In Empire’s one-star review John Nugent described Smurfs as ‘a tedious series, with more than a whiff of corporate mandate about it’ and also questioned if any fans of the Smurfs actually still existed.

For The Times, another one-starrer, Kevin Maher sounded beyond fed up as he called Smurfs ‘profoundly, oppressively empty’ and added: ‘There’s no reason to see it.’

‘This Smurfs might just be the worst of the lot, because it’s simultaneously derivative and so crammed with new Smurfs lore that it may make you yearn for the comparatively humble hijinks of Marvel’s multiverse,’ complained The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey in what was – you guessed it -yet another minimum-marks review.

While The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw might have been a smidgen more generous by awarding the animated flick two stars, he sounded equally unimpressed in his comments about the ‘laborious slice of content’.

‘For me, this film shows yet again that there is something about the Smurfs, those little Belgian creatures with blue skin and floppy-protuberant hats, which is basically kryptonite to comedy and entertainment,’ he wrote.

Film Authority’s review had an imaginative way of describing its (1/5) displeasure with the film, sniping: ‘Chris Miller’s Smurfs literally smurfs its pants over and over again, it’s lazy, derivative and painfully sentimental.’

Produced for a reported budget of $58million (£43.2m) before marketing costs, its opening weekend is set for a distinctly underwhelming $12m (£8.9m), according to Deadline.

Discussing his collaboration with Rihanna for the movie, director Chris Miller told Metro she was ‘invaluable’.

Alongside her ‘great’ vocal performance, Miller revealed they were ‘hyper focused’ with the 37-year-old star on bringing a new look to Smurfette.

‘We spent a long time – about a year, actually – even going through different hair styles and even slight subtle costume changes and little things.

‘We really, really, really pushed it to places that it was like, “We can’t, this is not going to happen.” We went almost full circle back to those original Peyo designs with some slight modifications, and felt really good about it.

‘With Rihanna, it’s like showing her art and really just getting her to react. She was invaluable in that way.’

Smurfs is in cinemas now.

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