In 2014 20 films were submitted to the Oscars for consideration. Of that 20 I have seen 17 (including the film reviewing right now). Of the remaining 3, one should be coming up in the next week or so and two I have found impossible to find (Cheating and Giovanni’s Island. If anyone knows a way clue me in!). Three I am not reviewing on this site because they are garbage and I try to only review movies I have at least one positive thing to say about aside from the Disney Canon which I reviewed all of them. If people really want me too review them let me know. The three garbage films are Nut Job, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return and The Hero of Color City. If you want to read a review tearing apart three movies I will do it but only if by request (this is a hobby after all, so it should be something I enjoy). 🙂
But today I get to review the 6th installment in the Tinker bell series produced by Disney Toons, the mostly direct to video wing of Walt Disney. My blogging friend over at Animatedkid is reviewing the entire Disney Toons Canon (bless his heart…). The movies are terrible but his reviews are great so check it out. The Tinker bell movies may seem like masterpieces by the time he gets to them! https://animatedkid.wordpress.com/
I’m actually excited to talk about this movie because the entire Tinker Bell series are way better than you might at first think. They are pretty well animated, have decent stories and good voice performances. Are they Oscar worthy? No but they really are entertaining, well made movies.
And I’d say The Pirate Fairy is the best of the series I have seen. It’s a cute little story which I think girls will love.
The story for The Pirate Fairy is centered around a fairy named Zarina (voiced by Christina Hendricks of Madmen fame). She is a curious fairy and is easily bored doing her job as a dust-keeper (in the Fairy world all the pixies have distinct roles like Animal Keeper, Spring Fairy etc).
The Dust Keepers make pixie dust for all the other pixies to use and they have an assembly line that follows time tested methods for making yellow dust that is magic out of concentrated blue stones.
Zarina wants to know why they do things the way they do and she begins experimenting with different combinations of dust causing different reactions. Unfortunately one of those reactions causes a kind of explosion and Zarina is forbidden from being a dust keeper.
After Pixie Hollow celebrates the seasons, Zarina runs away and takes the blue dust with her. Tinker Bell (Mae Whitman), Silvermist (Lucy Liu), Iridessa (Raven-Symone), Rosetta (Megan Hilty), Fawn (Angela Bartys) and Vidia (Pamela Adion) go after her . It’s a fun collection of girls and personalities- kind of like the fairy world Avengers ;).
When they find Zarina it turns out she has become a pirate (captain no less) on a ship with James Hook (voiced by Tom Hiddleston!). He is of course up to no good!
The rest of the movie is a back and forth between the girls, Hook and the pirates. Eventually Zarina realizes Hook is just using her to get the pixie dust so his ship will be able to fly. The girls have to defeat Hook, rescue Zarina and get back the blue stones.
So yes The Pirate Fairy doesn’t reinvent the wheel but there are a lots of little winks to the original Peter Pan movie like showing the origin of the clock in the crocodile or how Hook met Mr Smee. The girls have fun personalities and Zarina is very likable. Hiddleston hams it up as Hook and overall it’s not a bad watch. It’s not quite special enough to be worthy of a B but still a strong recommendation especially for the target audience.
I think girls 5 and under will love it and it has a nice message about being curious, smart and valuing everyone’s unique gifts.
The animation is pretty good with the pixie dust sparkling all over the ship and characters. As I said the voicework is good and Joel McNeely does a great job with the music.
If you have a young girl I think they will really enjoy The Pirate Fairy. For what it is trying to be it does it very well.
Overall Grade- C+ (Not every movie has to be a masterpiece for me to heartily recommend it).
