BigGuy

I enjoyed this movie. The tone was actually a little more upbeat than the original. The original had the man-at-the-end-of-his-rope thing going on in this movie, he comes across as more impulsive than backed into a corner.

The villains in this movie were the weak points. The initial baddie, the owner of the town (or mayor or whatever) was a little flat and trying too hars. When Sharon Stone's villain enters the scene it is just awful. I don't know if she got bad direction or what, but her acting was like nails on the chalkboard bad. They tried to give her a great villian entrance but it was sad.

I really wish Rza and Christopher Lloyd had more development. They are fun characters but act as Deus Ex Machina rather than full fledged characters (although the same as from the first one).

I was pleased that they didn't repeat too many bits from the original movie, which is one of the more common failures for sequels. For instance the opening scene is very similar to the original. There are a couple of other callbacks but they weren't so shoehorned in that if you watched this one without the original you would wonder what that scene was about.

If you are an action movie fan, especially with some dark humor thrown in, check it out. If you liked the original, you'll like this.

I didn't have high hopes for this one, but... How many reviews have you read that start that way? Anyway, the pacing of this movie was glacial. Even fastforwarding through some of the real slow parts made this movie feel about twice as long as it needed to be. They also through in almost every trope and cliche for this sub-genre (unexpected female warrior). I think if the bad guys weren't so inept, it would have been more palatable. Also so many of the "twists" were forced into the script that it was like watching a Rube Goldberg device were someone needs to nudge each new prop to get it to work.

I suppose having Rihanna as a main character should have tipped me off that there would be a lot of dance numbers and random songs, but... it was also jarring to have "real" scenes thrown in, but really only for a backdrop for the smurfs to run through, not in any attempt to interact with characters there. Just CGI the whole thing if you aren't going to actually use the real world scenes for anything. In fact I think the only real world character that talked wore a helmet with tinted face screen.

As for the plot... it was okay. Not expecting much from a smurfs movie and it delivered. I think the best part of the movie was Joel the evil wizards top henchmen.

If you have a kid they will likely enjoy it, check your brain at the door and prepare for odd juxtaposition and you'll be ok.