Blue 'Smurfs' and even bluer 'Change-Up' movie

Fifty years since they were created, the Smurfs have made a comeback and, to everyone's surprise, they actually did well at the box office.

The Smurfs ***

It's a typical fantasy story: the happy blue Smurfs see their cheerful world invaded by an evil wizard, Gargamel (Hank Azaria), and they seek refuge in New York's Central Park. They find a human friend (Neil Patrick Harris) who helps them to overcome various obstacles so that they can return home. It is a kids movie, but with enough fun to keep adult boredom at bay.

The Change-Up *

This is the nastiest and most offensive film I have seen in years. It revives the oldest of Hollywood's cheap gimmicks, in which two characters swap identities. Mitch (Ryan Reynolds) is a slob, a freeloader who craves sex but flees from commitment. Dave (Jason Bateman) is a suburban nerd with a wife, kids and a marriage that has cooled off. On a boys' night out, these two guys pee in a fountain in a public park. The next morning they wake to discover that they have swapped personalities. Mitch is stuck in the body, the dull job and the fractured marriage of his buddy; and the prissy Dave must contend with Mitch's kinky sex partners. It is leering, tasteless and peppered with the nastiest cheap sexual humour.

Inside Out **

There are men whose success as weight-lifters and wrestlers lead them to a career in the movies. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dwayne Johnson are the obvious examples. Now a wrestler known as "Triple H" is taking a shot at a movie career under the name of Paul Levesque. It could have worked, if only they'd had a coherent script.