Fans have begged Rihanna to get back in the studio for years. And, by that, I can’t imagine any of them meant specifically to voice Smurfette in an obnoxious reboot (and fourth American-made film) of the Smurfs, playing second fiddle to James Corden. Posters for Smurfs have repeatedly screamed at us that, “Rihanna is Smurfette”– as if that’s meant to trigger some kind of ecstatic revelation in itself. But, why, exactly, is Rihanna Smurfette? And why has it been deemed necessary for Smurfette to always be voiced by a pop star (first Katy Perry, then Demi Lovato), despite not being any more or less musical than the rest of the Smurfs?
This is the kind of untraceable logic the Smurfs franchise has always operated on. The first two films, a blend of live action and CGI, tossed the magical little denizens of a mushroom village, originally dreamt up by Belgian comics artist Peyo, into the real world to go bother Neil Patrick Harris. The third was a fully animated reboot. All three were under Sony. Now Paramount is having a crack. And 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.
