As part of Hollywoods ongoing campaign to exploit each and every story character and diversion of ones childhood in some vacuous big-screen feature- often several times- always in 3D - the latest in these exercises in un-reconstituted capitalist greed is, belatedly,
The Smurfs. That tribe of blue little people, who routinely alternate verbs, adverbs and nouns with the word smurf, and whom presumably, procreate exclusively via the sole female inhabitant of the tribe, Smurfette, who draws the attentions of the otherwise male population like a coquettish queen bee, will be hitting our screens in August. A new trailer for The Smurfs Movie 3D has been released and shows us our best glimpse yet at the movie which finds our leads transferred to contemporary New York from their home in the middle ages. The characters originally created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo and subsequently immortalised by the Hannah Barbara series are now rendered in 3D and interacting with live action characters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJxWAlNUCZY As ever their nemesis Gargamel (
Hank Azaria) provides the sinister antagonist in a film which sees the big screen debut of pop star
Katy Perry as the voice of Smurfette as well as featuring charismatic Scottish thespian
Alan Cumming as Gutsy Smurf. The film is directed by
Raja Gosnell who has experience with CGI/live-action cross-overs at the helm of the Scooby Doo movies. The worldwide release is set to take place in the week of August 3rd and will be distributed through Columbia pictures.