That’s right, it’s the “Smurfs” trailer.
This is a parody, right? Some enterprising wiseacre with editing skills and a rudimentary grasp of CGI made this for the YouTube lulz? ‘Cause if not, I just don’t get it. I think as far as shitty-looking, childhood-raping, hip-hop-ized, designed-by-committee swill, this is the pure stuff; they must have spent hours reducing this just to ensure that nothing about it was accidentally tolerable.
Two further points:
1. Neal Patrick Harris. Really? I like you, man, don’t do this shit. Leave it to the David Crosses of the world.
2. When I loaded this page, the trailer played on an endless loop. I watched it three times in horror, then opened a new tab to write this post while the trailer continued to torment me via my computer speakers. I expect this means that I am now in hell. Room 1, eternal hot pokering in various orifices. Room 2, eternal “Smurfs” trailer.
Honestly, I don’t see what is so brain-razingly terrible about this to justify all the outrage.
(Mind you: I am not suggesting that it “good” either.)
Superficially, it’s not nearly as terrible as the Marmaduke trailer (probably the gold standard for “I can’t watch this” advertising). But this is basically a distillation of exactly what you would expect any movie version of an 80s cartoon to be: crappy hip hop soundtrack to hip it up and urbanize it (but in a safe way – we’re trying to appeal to WHITE kids here!) – and they integrated the well-known theme music, naturally; stupid faux-epic intro with really bad computer effects; and the Smurfs themselves not in little mushrooms in a forest, but running around in a modern big city (a la Jason, the Muppets, the T-Rex in Jurassic Park 2, and many intrepid film fishes-out-of-water before). Oh, and they can’t use “smurfed” – it has to be “smurf’d” (hip! 12 year old YouTubers will love it!).
So yeah, it could have been worse. Papa Smurf could wear shades and rap. There could be a talking dog or cat or baby. Neal Patrick Harris could appear in blue makeup and a white hat, and maybe a big Flavor Flav clock around his neck. It could be extraordinarily awful, and it isn’t. But like I said… this is the pure stuff. It’s just exactly what you’d expect. I didn’t cover my eyes in horror, I just sighed in exhausted despair.