After four years of waiting, "The Smurfs" finally has a sequel, and this time the protagonists are no longer male Smurfs, but Smurfs: the only woman in the Smurf village. How will the director arrange the plot? A classic routine is: adventure + growth. This is indeed the main structure of the "Smurfs": Smurf is an independent-minded Smurf who travels alone with a backpack to explore the forbidden forests. In the end, it is also the blue sister that rescues the trapped Smurfs. Therefore, the whole film is full of strong feminism.
But what the director wants to express is not limited to this. Sister Smurf also has a special identity: she is not an authentic Smurfs, but is made by Gargamel with mud. It is this point that was captured and amplified by the director, turning a children's anime into a film with a philosophical theme. This theme has been especially evident in Hollywood films of recent years: self-positioning.
When it comes to "self-positioning", it will definitely involve "marginal groups": on the one hand, they want to maintain their uniqueness, and on the other hand, they want to integrate into the mainstream group. But the two are often incompatible, and dramatic conflicts arise. The war and the delicate balance between the special and the ordinary in "X-Men" stems from this. The heroine in "Ghost in the Shell" has the attributes of half-man and half-machine, which makes her think about who she is, and then promotes the whole plot. Even the male protagonist in "Billy Lynn's Halftime Battle" was rejected by the mainstream American crowd because of his experience in the Iraq War.
The Smurfs this time focuses on Sister Smurf: an outlier (shaped in mud) in a mainstream group. So at the beginning of the film, the question is raised: What is the essence of Sister Lan? The essence of the Smurfs is very clear, and the body is strong. The essence of Cong Cong is also clear, clever. And only Sister Lan has no answer. At this time, Sister Lan lost her self-positioning. Who is she? No one can tell her, so Sister Lan's life is full of confusion and uncertainty. This is very similar to the state of evasion and self-doubt that special people find themselves different from others in "X-Men".
Some people say that if you are confused, you are confused, and it is not important. It is better to live with other Smurfs. In fact, this will lead to a very serious consequence: being bound by fate and unable to obtain happiness. This is the most common sentence that Gargamel said when he saw Sister Lan: Her destiny is to be used. She is always just a means, and cannot achieve her own purpose and happiness. There are similar words in "X-Men": Special people are just a test product, not a perfect species at all, not worthy of living in the world. It is this contradiction that has become the biggest internal driving force of the film "The Smurfs": to be happy, you must be clear about who you are. Adventure is the process of finding oneself, so two-thirds of the film has a necessity to exist.
The development in the back of the movie is a routine. Sister Lan sacrificed herself to save a group of Smurfs. In the end, in the mourning of everyone, a unique energy was formed, and it was exchanged for the life of Sister Lan. As for Sister Lan, she finally found herself: unlike Cong Cong and Jianjian, who can use existing social labels to define herself, she has gathered various advantages such as kindness, bravery, and intelligence. If the self-positioning is right, happiness will not be absent, a perfect ending.
Of course, Sister Lan is not only telling her own story, but also represents a lot of marginalized groups: when the established rules of a society cannot adapt to these minority groups, it may not be the problem of these groups themselves, but It is the social rules that need to be debugged and accommodated with a more tolerant attitude.
This movie is not only suitable for children, but adults will also benefit from watching it. But what is surprising is that the North American box office was flat, with only $14.01 million in the first three days of the first week, ranking behind "Baby Boss" and "Beauty and the Beast". Compared with "The Smurfs 2", it is also greatly reduced.
So is it possible to make a comeback in the country? It can be said that the producer Sony chose "The Smurfs" to be a week before the May Day holiday. Because no other cartoon can compete with it this week; next week's May 1st gear will also be used to monopolize the cartoon family market. Therefore, some people predict that the landing point is expected to be 300 million. As for whether this number can be achieved, it remains to be tested by the market.
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