The star vocal turn of the very moderate new Smurfs film is Rihanna, phoning in an undemanding audio contribution as the female character named “Smurfette”. But there is little to no music in this laborious slice of content, one of the many frustrating and disconcerting things about it. And for me, this film shows yet again that there is something about the Smurfs, those little Belgian creatures with blue skin and floppy-protuberant hats, which is basically kryptonite to comedy and entertainment.

The script by Pam Brady (justly respected for her work on South Park and Team America: World Police) follows the template of being pretty bland for the sweet Smurfs themselves, but is sharpened up with one or two properly funny lines for the all-too-brief scenes featuring the evil wizard characters Razamel and Gargamel (both voiced by JP Karliak) whom the Smurfs are up against.

In the Smurfs’ home village, the one depressed Smurf is No Name Smurf (voiced by James Corden), who feels he has no real attribute or quality that marks him out. But then he discovers that he in fact has cosmic and magical powers, which are to come in vitally handy when the evil wizards kidnap Papa Smurf (John Goodman), intent on purloining a certain magic book secretly in his possession which would allow them, in concert with other wicked beings, to control the universe.

This very uninteresting and uninspired story plods along for an hour and a half, though there are some almost-interesting surreal scenes when our heroes find themselves in weird alt-universe dimensions. There are also some decent gags featuring Sound Effect Smurf, who communicates in sound effects. But there seems to be a worrying assumption here that a film aimed at very little kids doesn’t need to have a very interesting or engaging story.

• Smurfs is out now in Australia, and on 18 July in the UK and US.