At long last, the cinematic revelation we've all been waiting for: an origin story for Disney-fied twinkle-flit heroine Tinker Bell. Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue unearths many an unknown fact about the de facto Queen of Pixie Dust. For example, you may not have known that "Tink" had contact with humans before her legendary adventure with Wendy, the Lost Boys, and that boy who didn't want to grow up. What's more, you probably didn't care to know. But your kids might, and that's precisely why this movie exists.
Contrary to the Tinker Bell we remember from the many varied iterations of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan -- including the original 1953 Disney animated version, which transformed the signature fairy into one of its princess icons and used her pixie dust to materialize vast piles of cash -- the Tink at the center of this new direct-to-DVD adventure is not a jealousy-fueled pixie-bitch, but a bright-eyed explorer living amongst a magical colony of colorful fairies. Or a colorful colony of magical fairies. Whatever the case, there's a lot of color and magic going around.
Don't go thinking that this film tells the story of how Tinker Bell became such a brat -- this is Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, not Tinker Bell Episode Three: Revenge of the Fairy. No, this film finds Tinker Bell and her fairy cohorts on summer holiday in London (???), where Tink (voiced by Mae Whitman) wanders just a little too far into the land of the humans and becomes trapped inside the playhouse of an imaginative British girl named Lizzy (Lauren Mote), whose scientist father (Michael Sheen -- yes, the one from The Queen and Frost/Nixon) is so lacking in imagination that he goes to great pains to impress upon his daughter that fairies are not real! What...a rube.
While Tink's friends stage a grand-scale effort to rescue her from the clutches of the humans, our winged heroine finds herself developing an unlikely bond with Lizzy, and together they have tea parties and share secrets and discover that, in fact, fairies and humans can peacefully co-exist. There is nothing even remotely appealing about this film to any viewer over the age of 8 -- except if said viewer happens to have children under the age of 8, who stare transfixed at the screen gasping in moments of suspense and exhaling when the happy end credits roll. It is for those special little people that this movie holds value, and why it is frankly unfair to impose a strictly "grown-up" point of view when discussing it.
The 77-minute narrative feels like a short subject -- like an extended episode of a Disney Channel series titled, The Continuing Adventures of Young Tinker Bell. The animation is standard Disney DVD style: colorful but stilted CGI, lacking the sophistication of Pixar but professional enough to please the eye. Most important of all, unlike several other recent pre-packaged kid sensations -- the most glaring example being the abomination that is Fred: The Movie -- Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is not a brain-dead, soul-sucking exercise in stylized geekery. In fact, it is completely harmless. For a parent searching a barren landscape for alleged "kid-friendly" entertainment, that is a priceless commodity.
It is simple. It is obvious. It is lighter than a grain of pixie dust. However, all possible negatives notwithstanding, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is just about ideal for the 1st and 2nd grade set. Plus, for parents it offers a convenient respite from the daily grind. Take a load off, sit down with your kids, take a nap while they watch the movie, then let them wake you up to tell you all about it.
Contrary to the Tinker Bell we remember from the many varied iterations of J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan -- including the original 1953 Disney animated version, which transformed the signature fairy into one of its princess icons and used her pixie dust to materialize vast piles of cash -- the Tink at the center of this new direct-to-DVD adventure is not a jealousy-fueled pixie-bitch, but a bright-eyed explorer living amongst a magical colony of colorful fairies. Or a colorful colony of magical fairies. Whatever the case, there's a lot of color and magic going around.
Don't go thinking that this film tells the story of how Tinker Bell became such a brat -- this is Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, not Tinker Bell Episode Three: Revenge of the Fairy. No, this film finds Tinker Bell and her fairy cohorts on summer holiday in London (???), where Tink (voiced by Mae Whitman) wanders just a little too far into the land of the humans and becomes trapped inside the playhouse of an imaginative British girl named Lizzy (Lauren Mote), whose scientist father (Michael Sheen -- yes, the one from The Queen and Frost/Nixon) is so lacking in imagination that he goes to great pains to impress upon his daughter that fairies are not real! What...a rube.
While Tink's friends stage a grand-scale effort to rescue her from the clutches of the humans, our winged heroine finds herself developing an unlikely bond with Lizzy, and together they have tea parties and share secrets and discover that, in fact, fairies and humans can peacefully co-exist. There is nothing even remotely appealing about this film to any viewer over the age of 8 -- except if said viewer happens to have children under the age of 8, who stare transfixed at the screen gasping in moments of suspense and exhaling when the happy end credits roll. It is for those special little people that this movie holds value, and why it is frankly unfair to impose a strictly "grown-up" point of view when discussing it.
The 77-minute narrative feels like a short subject -- like an extended episode of a Disney Channel series titled, The Continuing Adventures of Young Tinker Bell. The animation is standard Disney DVD style: colorful but stilted CGI, lacking the sophistication of Pixar but professional enough to please the eye. Most important of all, unlike several other recent pre-packaged kid sensations -- the most glaring example being the abomination that is Fred: The Movie -- Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is not a brain-dead, soul-sucking exercise in stylized geekery. In fact, it is completely harmless. For a parent searching a barren landscape for alleged "kid-friendly" entertainment, that is a priceless commodity.
It is simple. It is obvious. It is lighter than a grain of pixie dust. However, all possible negatives notwithstanding, Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue is just about ideal for the 1st and 2nd grade set. Plus, for parents it offers a convenient respite from the daily grind. Take a load off, sit down with your kids, take a nap while they watch the movie, then let them wake you up to tell you all about it.
