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Review of The Smurfs (Heitor Pereira)
FILMTRACKS RECOMMENDS:
Buy it... if you expect very little from Heitor Pereira's richly
orchestral and thematically cohesive score, because while the music is
often shallow, predictable, and repetitive, it functions well enough to
yield a few highlights along its path.
Avoid it... if you recall the extensive classical music utilized in the 1980's cartoon and expect Pereira to even attempt to service this film with the same tone of austere and superior orchestral depth.
FILMTRACKS EDITORIAL REVIEW:
The Smurfs: (Heitor Pereira) Regarded as "little
devils" and protested as being subversive by religious groups during
their run on NBC from 1981 to 1989, the little blue creatures of the
television show "The Smurfs" were an adaptation of a Belgian comic
series of the same name that originated in the 1950's. Given the immense
popularity of the Hanna-Barbera collection of 256 animated episodes of
"The Smurfs," it's surprising that it took so long for the estate of the
concept's creator to finally authorize a feature adaptation and, after a
multitude of delayed production and release dates, the studios to get
their act together for this predictable winner. Unfortunately, the 2011
movie's script is a disaster, soliciting scathing reviews by taking the
age-long battle between the little blue Smurfs and the evil old man,
Gargamel, and his cat through a vortex that places them in the
live-action environment of New York City. Sympathetic people house the
wayward Smurfs, protect them from Hank Azaria's Gargamel, and help their
quest to locate their old comic books (in an inside joke) to recall the
spell that will return them to their mythical land. If the story doesn't
bore you like all other CGI/live action blends, then rest assured that
your little children will desperately desire the toys associated with
the picture, if only because the designs of the Smurfs on screen were
modeled after their merchandising counterparts, a fiscally shrewd but
obnoxious move (perhaps "Made in China" labels on their asses would have
offered some humorous respite for adults in the audience). While a bone
was thrown to enthusiasts of the original cartoon series with the hiring
of Jonathan Winters to continue in the role of Papa Smurf, other voices
were unnecessarily changed in tone and several Smurfs were completely
fabricated from scratch for the purposes of this movie. Still, The
Smurfs predictably hacked through the late summer box office and
passed the $250 million mark worldwide in just three weeks. Talk of
sequels was always rampant from the studio, and with more little blue
adventures all but certain to follow, the music for this original entry
takes on greater significance.
If it's difficult to recall original scores from the 1980's cartoon, that because it was famous for its use of classical music during its run, not only for specific solitary applications, but also repetitively referenced as theme music for individual concepts in the narrative (Gargamel, for instance, most frequently received consistent motifs from Franz Schubert and Modest Mussorgsky). Selections of music by Sergey Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Johann Sebastian Bach, and Richard Wagner (among a dozen others) were commonplace in the cartoon. So, the question is: When the filmmakers went to Hans Zimmer's Remote Control in search of a score for The Smurfs and came out with house regular Heitor Pereira as the composer, how exactly would the new music stack up to that classical crowd? Obviously, such a comparison is unfair, and Pereira, who started with Zimmer as a regular guitar performer and has slowly taken on more compositional duties, did not attempt to emulate anything heard in the old cartoons. Instead, you get a blend of parody and streamlined children's music of modern times that strives in places to achieve the dynamic orchestral dexterity of Christopher Lennertz's humor or Joel McNeely's drama in the genre, but typically falls back on ideas more familiar to Harry Gregson-Williams and John Powell in their less mature and inspired equivalents. The instrumentation is where you hear portions of Gregson-Williams and Powell, Pereira using whining, nasal tones to represent small creatures as had been done in Antz. With Pereira, of course, the electric and acoustic guitars are never too far behind, though their addition to the orchestra is not as frequent as you might expect. Everything from pipe organ to exotic woodwinds and deep adult chorus are thrown into this wild mix, and like Lennertz's music for the similar films, if you don't like where the minute-long cue you're listening to is headed, wait for the next in the three dozen cues for a sudden change in pace. One positive aspect that requires mentioning is the fact that Pereira seems unafraid to really emphasize the less muscular tones in the ensemble as needed, the woodwinds especially prominent throughout. Thematically, The Smurfs is cohesive, but the statements of its ideas are rather weak in their enunciation and therefore not very memorable. The protagonists are afforded a Celtic-flavored tune immediately in "Race to the Village" and this whistle and flute-led idea is reprised in several places later on. Only in a few cues, however, such as "We Ride" and "Smurfs Stand Up," does the theme really make an impact, its dainty instrumentation and ethnic flavor very reminiscent of McNeely's Tinkerbell scores but not exhibiting the same solid depth of orchestration. In "You're a Good Papa" and "I Smurf You," Pereira expresses a sappy string theme for familial drama. As heard in "Gargamel's Smurf Plan," "The Genius That is Gargamel," and "My Smurf Magic Machine," Gargamel receives a theme led by bassoon and sometimes augmented by angrily chanted deep male choir (the latter at least once causing broad distortion in the mix on album). Aside from the overstated Gargamel idea, none of these themes really takes flight in The Smurfs, and Pereira's handling of the various facets of the very diverse ensemble is not well enough balanced to create a score with enough awe in individual moments to compensate for the necessarily fragmented whole. Even in the majestic cues, such as "Blue Moon Incantation," the music is surprisingly shallow and simplistic. Its colors are never questioned, but rather how they form layers in such a way as to satisfyingly create a rounded orchestral sound. The score screams "procedure" and attempts so hard to address each element in parody mode that it lacks sincerity. If anything, it makes the genuine lyricism of McNeely's music for similar situations all the more impressive. The album presentation of The Smurfs (relegated to download form with the exception of an Amazon.com "CDr on Demand" option), sounds extremely flat in its mix (the fantasy element is diminished significantly as such) and is spread out over 36 tracks for over an hour of length that will all seem similar in its addressing of different situations. One could take a combination of "The Vortex" (the best of the fantasy material), "The Awesome Power of Me" (the action climax), and "I Smurf You" (summarizing the lighter themes of the score) and create a decent 10-minute suite representing this film. Otherwise, in its full form, it reflects all the traits that make the film as insufferable for adults as any shameless merchandising ploy. ***
TRACK LISTINGS:
Total Time: 67:16
NOTES & QUOTES:
The insert includes a list of performers but no extra information
about the score or film. As in many of Amazon.com's "CDr on demand"
products, the packaging smells incredibly foul when new.
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