"USA Today"s Scott Bowles enjoyed Azaria's performance calling him "the human standout" and saying "He and his distrusting cat, Azrael, steal scenes". He also called Jonathan Winters "wonderful" as Papa Smurf. Neil Genzlinger of "The New York Times" said Azaria was "quite funny". About the film's content, he said "Those grown-up winks, along with an array of New York locations, make "The Smurfs" a surprisingly tolerable film for adults. As for their children, well, who knows with kids? But at least the writers have cleverly built in enough Smurfology that today's youngsters will be able to get the basics of the blue universe". Betsy Sharkey from the "Los Angeles Times" gave the film a negative review saying, "Director Raja Gosnell starts with the innocence but then loses his way in trying to pull off the hipster spin the script by J. David Stern, David N. Weiss, Jay Scherick and David Ronn is shooting for." and "There are many good actors wasted as voices—Alan Cumming, Fred Armisen and Winters among them—and in the flesh, though the greatest disservice is to Azaria".