Smurfs Is Smurfing Terrible

The Smurfs have arrived in New York City, and if critics are to be believed, you should avoid the little blue things at all cost. Here's what they're saying:

• “I wouldn't smurf Gosnell's The Smurfs on my smurfiest enemy,” writes Sean O’Connell of the Washington Post. The plot’s kind of like Enchanted “only far less clever, kindhearted, original, exciting or entertaining.” On the other hand: His 7-year-old liked it.
• “It may be going a little far to suggest that taking your little one to The Smurfs borders on child abuse,” but it’s definitely not a good idea, writes Lou Lumenick of the New York Post, dubbing it “this season's pre-K equivalent of Transformers: Dark of the Moon.”

• The movie is “pure Saturday-afternoon kiddie product,” writes Ty Burr of the Boston Globe. “There is creepy animal CGI. There is needless 3-D. There are random movie quotes. … The worst parts of The Smurfs can probably be summed up in two words: Smurf rap.”
• Here’s a ringing endorsement: “For all the film has going against it, it never reaches the true depths of despair,” writes Laremy Legel of Film.com. “Neil Patrick Harris is impossible to work up a good hate for.” Besides, the movie “basically admits to adults, ‘We know, we know.’”

(More Smurfs stories.)