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The Smurfs 2021

Mediocre

Recommended age Unlock

Co-watching from age 5

Stimulating

Exact score locked

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Netflix

Prime Video

Paramount +

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The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs follow a village of small blue creatures who live in mushroom houses in a sunny forest, always dodging the wizard Gargamel. The tone is playful and adventurous, aimed at preschoolers, with lessons about teamwork and self-acceptance.

Clear lessons about self-acceptance and being yourself.
Teamwork solves every problem the Smurfs face.
Each character has a distinct, recognisable personality.
Short, self-contained stories with satisfying endings.
Recurring chases and capture can feel mildly tense.
Frequent slapstick and mischief the youngest may imitate.
A recurring villain schemes to catch the characters.

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Score Breakdown

The pacing runs fast and busy throughout, with slapstick chases, tumbling characters, collisions and loud effects filling nearly every scene. Genuine quiet moments are rare, and the sound stays intense and almost continuously present, which leaves a young child little room to settle. The visuals themselves are clean and well organised, and there are no shout-at-the-camera hooks, calls to subscribe or cliffhanger tricks, so the stimulation comes from the story rather than from manipulation. One episode, 'Who's Heftier?', sits closer to balanced, but the sustained busyness is the main strain on calm processing across the series.

Every episode follows one clear thread from beginning to middle to end, whether it is Hefty fixing his nose, a robot built to change Baby, or Clumsy taking a magic amulet. Cause and effect stay visible and logical, so a parent can follow how one thing leads to the next and children can track the central goal. A secondary strand in Gargamel's lair often runs alongside the main story, staying secondary but occasionally splitting attention. The recurring caveat is that the busy, chaotic middle stretches pack many quick gags and events close together, which asks more of the youngest viewers trying to hold the through-line.

The emotional footing shifts often, with frequent switches between cheerful play and sudden fright as Gargamel threatens to boil or eat the Smurfs and chases send everyone into panic. Tension always resolves, since each scary moment is undone by a rescue or a happy escape, and the Smurfs do rally around one another and offer real support. Working against that warmth is a steady stream of teasing and name-calling, from mocking a character's looks to calling friends 'numbskull' or volunteering Brainy as cat food. The reassurance tends to arrive only after sharp moments, and one ending closes on Gargamel's menacing laugh rather than fully soothing the tension.

Characters do drive the action and take initiative, inventing gadgets, volunteering for dangerous errands and setting off to fix their own mistakes. The problem-solving itself stays thin, though: inventions work instantly with no visible testing, and many endings resolve through lucky accidents, a convenient falling meteorite or Papa Smurf stepping in rather than a worked-through plan. A child sees plenty of doing and trying, but little of the name-it, attempt, evaluate, adjust process that shows how a solution is actually reasoned out. When the logic does land, as in Clumsy's clumsiness becoming the very thing that saves everyone, it gives an episode a satisfying payoff.

Sentences are generally complete and clearly spoken, and some episodes reach for useful words like 'perseverance', 'amulet', 'antidote' and 'loyalty' that a child can pick up from context. The defining feature is the running gag of swapping the word 'smurf' in for many different verbs and nouns, which is playful but strips meaning out of otherwise ordinary lines and models language that does not transfer to a child's own speech. A large share of the audio is also filler reaction noise, long runs of 'Ah!', 'Whoa!' and 'Huh?' during the slapstick. The balance tips toward expressive outbursts over informative talk once the action takes over.

Almost nothing on screen transfers to a child's daily life: the world runs on magic potions, spell books, hypno-glasses and a wizard, and the central actions cannot be carried into offline play with real objects. What does connect is the social layer, which stays recognisable across episodes: wanting to be noticed, teamwork, loyalty between friends, a chore nobody wants, and accepting yourself as you are. Occasional touchpoints like a Halloween party, baking or push-ups add a thin thread of the familiar. Beyond those relatable feelings, the practical, imitable value stays low.

More information

The village is a near-uniform world of blue characters who look nearly identical apart from their hats, and the cast is overwhelmingly male. Smurfette is almost always the single prominent female, set apart by a dress and blonde hair, and the human world appears only as the villain Gargamel and his cat, so there is no variation in family setup, age, body type or cultural origin. Roles follow a narrow, dated pattern: the male characters carry the jobs, plans, strength and rescues, while the female presence mostly gardens, reacts or fills out crowd scenes. One episode, 'Smurf-Fu', hands the lead, the knowledge and the rescue to Smurfette, but the overall picture of who appears and who takes charge stays narrow throughout.

The series lives entirely in an imagined world of small blue characters in mushroom houses, magic potions and spells, so very little maps onto a child's real day. The recognisable thread is the everyday feeling underneath each story, such as wanting to be noticed, sibling-style squabbling or missing out. Gargamel returns as a flat, cackling villain who wants to catch and cook the Smurfs, keeping the good-versus-evil framing simple and central, and the chase peril sits at the more intense end for the youngest viewers. The magic does keep to its own steady logic within each episode, so the invented world holds together on its own terms.

If you end up on the couch for this one, the craft carries you: the animation is polished and cinematic, the characters are expressive, and each episode tells a proper little story with a real beginning, middle and end rather than a looped activity. A few gags are pitched your way, like the mock-scientific formula declaring a nose '37% too big' or Gargamel bickering with his amulet as if it were a nagging navigation voice. The catch is the noise. Long stretches of shrieking, chained 'Meow!' calls and an alarm that goes off every few minutes mean you will hear a lot of yelling in a quiet room, so keep the volume within reach.

Season 1

9 episodes

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Who Nose?

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, Hefty becomes convinced his nose is too big after Brainy teases him and he worries Smurfette will not notice him. Ignoring Papa Smurf, he uses a cream from Gargamel's spell book, which backfires and turns him into a giant nose that rampages through the forest. The Smurfs work together to protect Smurfette, and Papa Smurf stops the creature with a handful of pepper before caging Hefty safely. By the end Hefty is recovering and the Smurfs agree his nose was fine all along.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Diaper Daddy

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, none of the Smurfs want to change Baby's diaper, so Handy invents a caretaker robot called Diaper Daddy. When Baby lands in the mud the robot short-circuits and starts firing at everyone, chasing the Smurfs up an old tower while the wizard Gargamel prowls nearby. The Smurfs work together and get Baby to press the off button, ending the rampage. The episode closes with them right back to arguing over whose turn it is to change Baby.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Smurf-Fu

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village and surrounding forest, Smurfette rescues Brainy from a snake using a fighting art called Smurfoo and then tries to teach it to the others. She pushes them to defend themselves alone, they rebel and plot to scare her, but a real ogre captures the group. Smurfette fights the ogre and frees her friends, and everyone realises they work best as a team. The episode ends with the Smurfs reunited and their motto restored.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Who's Heftier?

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, weak little Wimpy brags that he is stronger than Hefty, and the two face off in an obstacle-course contest. When Wimpy wins by luck and takes the title 'Heftier', Smurfette disguises herself as a fortune teller and invents a meteorite prophecy to help Hefty win a rematch. A real meteorite then falls, and Wimpy's warning saves the whole village. The Smurfs cheer him as the hero at the end.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Where's Papa Smurf?

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, Papa Smurf accidentally turns invisible after a clumsy Smurf knocks over his potions. To make an antidote, the Smurfs need a whisker from Gargamel's cat, so Brainy, Smurfette and the invisible Papa Smurf sneak into the wizard's house and pose as a ghost to steal it. They frighten Gargamel, grab the key and the whisker, and escape. Papa Smurf is cured and calls the village back to work.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Mind the Cat

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, Brainy borrows Papa Smurf's magic hypno-glasses and uses them to cure the nervous Scaredy Smurf of his fear of a bear. Encouraged by success, he and Smurfette decide to hypnotise the wizard Gargamel so he will stop chasing Smurfs, but the spell makes Gargamel obey his own cat instead. The Smurfs must sneak into Gargamel's house to recover the glasses as he hunts them on the cat's command. Papa Smurf arrives and steps in to set everything right.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Driiinnggggg!

recommended age co-watching from 5

In the Smurf village, Lazy keeps missing the fun because he is always asleep, so Handy builds him an alarm clock backpack that wakes him every few minutes. Newly awake, Lazy tries everything and parties through the night, but the endless ringing keeps the whole village up and cannot be switched off. When the Smurfs chase him to remove it, Lazy bolts into the forest and past a bear, while Gargamel and Azrael try to grab a Smurf drawn out by the noise. The episode ends with Lazy back home safe and the alarm gone, and Gargamel left empty-handed.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

The Scariest Smurf

recommended age co-watching from 5

On Halloween in the Smurf village, the timid Scaredy Smurf is talked into delivering Papa Smurf's dangerous potions and is accidentally splashed and transformed into a creature. Unaware of his new look, he wanders into the costume party and unknowingly terrifies everyone, sparking a long chase through the village and the nearby forest, where even the wizard Gargamel is frightened off. When the group finally corners the 'monster', it is revealed to be Scaredy himself, changed by the potion. The episode ends with Gargamel spying on the Smurfs and laughing.

The Smurfs 2021

The Smurfs 2021

Clumsy Not Clumsy

recommended age co-watching from 5

Clumsy Smurf is captured by the sorcerer Gargamel, who tricks him into taking a magic amulet that makes the wearer the opposite of what they are, secretly using it to track the Smurf village. When Clumsy returns home graceful, Gargamel follows the amulet and cages the Smurfs, planning to cook them. The Smurfs escape through Brainy's stalling and Clumsy's own clumsiness, which turns out to be exactly what foils the villain. The story ends with Clumsy accepting himself, deciding that 'having two left feet isn't so bad after all.'

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