Thumbelina was a movie I hoped to truly adore after over 13 years of not watching it, only, I found myself only to be neutral to it. It's good on some points, mainly visually, but it's also crappy on others. But Jodi Benson made it watchable.
Now, Don Bluth has only made… More
Thumbelina was a movie I hoped to truly adore after over 13 years of not watching it, only, I found myself only to be neutral to it. It's good on some points, mainly visually, but it's also crappy on others. But Jodi Benson made it watchable.
Now, Don Bluth has only made a handful of animated movies I love; The Land Before Time, & Anastasia. I truly hated A Troll in Central Park, never liked An American Tale, & could care less for All Dogs Go to Heaven. I have yet to watch The Secret of NIMH, & need to rewatch The Pebble & the Penguin, & Rock-A-Doodle (movies I loved as a child).
So you can already expect me to say that yes, I loved Thumbelina as a child, but to be more accurate, I liked it. This film has it's major flaws, but also has it's moments of beauty.
Animation/Coloring: The coloring in here is a little dull, you can clearly see the colors they're trying to use, but they are just matte & boring, but the visuals they use in here, such as the excessive sparkles/glitter, & [sun]lights are truly a dazzling view. And the animation is wonderful, nothing more to say on that.
Characters: Only a handful of characters in here are likable, to me that is. Thumbelina is a petite girl who wonders & dreams of finding someone of her same size to lover her & live happily ever after, but at the same time she's also rather pessimistic & cries most of the time. She reminds me a little of Alice (Alice in Wonderland), but keep that part in mind later on in this review. Then we have Thumbelina's mother, who is a kind, & caring woman who only wanted a daughter, even if it was the size of her thumb (hence Thumbelina). Then we have Prince Cornelious, the typical rebellious prince who doesn't like what his own riches offer, & prefers the wild, daring life. The rest of the characters aren't too interesting; we have Mrs. Toad who kidnapped Thumbelina only to make her a star & marry one of her sons. Did I mention Mrs. Toad has very large boobies, a curvatious body, & is Spanish? Talk about Mexican accuracy right there. The bugs in here all look the same, large cartoony eyes, & rubber-hose arms. In other words, they all look like some of Warner Bros' rejected Merry Melodies characters.
Cast/Acting: The voice acting in here was phenomenal,end it there. And Jodi Benson is in here! With her beautiful voice again since The Little Mermaid! Singers like her make me wonder why they don't get record deals rather than all of these new mediocre Disney Channel singers. Anyways, she may be the only memorable voice/actress you hear in this movie, but then there's Gilbert Gottfried. The rest of the cast members are forgettable
Songs/Music: I only loved a handful of the songs in this movie, the rest of the songs in here are terribly written & executed. But wait, the songs I loved, only three of them are beautifully written. What are these songs? Well, the two beautifully written songs are Soon & the reprise. They're such wonderfully sang & written, that I just feel like crying when I listen to them. The memorable one is "Let me Be Your Wings", I can't seem to get it out of my head, mainly because it's such a pretty song. But however, when you watch the film & listen to this song, it automatically feels & looks like it ripped-off "A Whole new World" from Aladdin.
The rest of the songs in here are nothing but crap. And let me warn you, if you're gonna plan on watching this song on youtube, do not, I repeat, DO NOT listen to the "Marry the Mole" song by Ms. Fieldmouse. It's horrible, it really is. One of the worst songs I have ever heard from an animated movie. No wonder this poor movie won a Razzie award for worst original song. And I really, really hated & was annoyed by any of the "Follow your Heart" songs sang by that annoying bird. Now the score, on the other hand, is plain out beautiful.
Plot/Story: Now, the plot in this movie seems simple, girl is tiny, wants a true love & she'll live happily ever after but is prevented as she is taken far away from home & must get back. But here is what I told you previously to hold your thought on; the movie begins to look like "Alice in Wonderland". The plot is a little confusing, girl must travel through many obstacles to get home. Now the major problem I had with this movie is the inaccuracies. The bird who helped her a long way, could have simply picked up Thumbelina & flew her home. No, instead he just made her suffer by going through an entire backyard & almost killed by the magical changing weather. No, I'm not kidding when I say that the weather in this movie changes by the day. One day it's spring, & the other is Summer, then it becomes Fall on the next day, & finally it's winter at last on the next day.
And lemme tell you that the world of Thumbelina is magical up the ass. Sure, many of you may know me as the guy who'll rub realism on my ass & care nothing for it, but this movie just didn't have didn't do too well making it extremely magical. And I also forgot to mention that the animals in here wear clothing. The talking animals was nothing new, but every animal in here has it's own set of clothing, hell even baby hicks are born out of their eggs with small hats & bows & girly skirts!
The other problem with this movie is how it feels so badly ripped off from other Disney movies. The main character looks like a Disney Princess with her large eyes, sings, & is a red head. So she's the tiny version of Ariel! Hell they even had the gall to use the same voice actress as Ariel! And you know what? this film ends the same way Beauty & the Beast does! Remember that stained glass ending? Yeah this film ends similarly, with a stained glass look, but in the story book it was pulled out from.
Loyalness to its source: As far as I can say, this movie stays TRUE to the tale it was adapted from. But that's the problem, it is true to it in the first place. The original fairy tale gives no morals, has little logic, & gives you themes of bestiality. This film adapted this movie in the similar ways of the tale, & didn't change up on much. And what is the moral of this movie or the tale? None! You can say Disney changes everything from their sources & does no justice to them, no, bullshit. Disney adapts fairy tales & makes them more believable & realistic (somewhat), as well as more believable & even gives them morals to learn.
If you've watched Tangled or Hercules, then you know what I mean. The original tales of those movies get weird, to plain out WTF?!?! & even at times make you say "Why could this person do _______ when they could easily have done_____?" or anything similar. When Disney adapted them, they gave them a unique twist to make them far more believable & to make more sense. This movie however, kept the exact same elements & did nothing to make them better. If Disney were to adapt this tale themselves (something I plan to do actually when I work with them), they would change most of the elements, to pretty much everything to make it far more logical as well as well written.
Now, as for Don Bluth, my research tell me that he left Disney with some other animators to work on his own seeing that he though Disney was gong to shit bottom around the 70s & 80s. Well, he was pretty much right around there. He began to work on his early films which were huge hits, & then once he got to the 90s. he hit shit bottom, & fast. He felt he could do better, & only caused for Disney to rise back up again when they worked on their Renaissance films. Disney can thank Bluth for that because of him starting to make crappy ass films around that time, & Disney rose back up with them. Bluth felt he could do better, & he thought he could do it with his 90s films, but the sad truth is, they all failed drastically critically, & theatrically.
Disney gave you Aladdin, Beauty & the Beast, & The Little Mermaid, whilst Bluth gave you A Troll in Central Park, Thumbelina, & All Dogs go to Heaven, all terrible films despite their beautiful animation. Say what you want about Disney, but at least their films, even the crappy ones like The Black Cauldron, are far more well written than the ones Bluth gave you in the 90s.
So all in all, the movie is ok, nothing special. You may like it, you may not. But most people who are under 10 will adore it. At best, this movie is mediocre, at worst it is crap.
