The Review

Tink was, if you remember, Peter Pan’s best girl. She was the cute, pouty fairy whose out of control dandruff problem made it possible for English kids to fly. One of those children, Wendy, caught the eye of the be-tighted Everboy, and Tink fumed in response. Her jealousy reached Shakespearean proportions when she (A) tried to have the Wendy killed, (b) was banished by Pan, and then (C) consorted with Captain Hook, thereby committing treason against Peter.

And for that, she has been rewarded with her own movie franchise.

There have been 2 Tinkerbell movies in the last year. In the first one, we discover Tinkerbell’s “home.” It bears little to no resemblance of Neverland, and there is no mention of Peter Pan, his Lost Boys, or Captain Hook. Also, her homicidal tendencies have not yet developed. Her world is mostly sweet and fairy-ish. The pixie labor force is devided evenly into five parts: Tinker, Water, Wind, Pixie Dust, and Burrito. Surprisingly, Tinkerbell does not work with pixie dust as we remember, but with broken wheels and spare metal rods and chunks of iron. She is a Tinker Fairy, because, you see, she Tinkers with stuff… The girl resents her unglamorous job, having never heard of MacGyver, but eventually comes to terms with her own identity.

In the new movie, “Tinkerbell: The Lost Treasure,” Tink is picked to create the world’s prettyest knick-knack. She is getting along well until her would-be boyfriend (yes, there are boy fairies, in case you were wondering) becomes so annoying, she is moved to mild violence. What was he doing? Nothing but making lunch for her, picking up around the house, and complimenting her wardrobe. All this while she is having fun playing Junkyard Wars. Even the total gender role reversal was not enough to quell Tink’s anger, and she accidentally breaks both her adorable trinket and a very important blue stone. Step one toward the dark side… complete.

Desperate times, our heroine decides, call for desperate measures. The only way she can replace the stone is to travel through Neverland to find a magic mirror on an abandoned pirate ship. And here we have the only remote references to the original play, Peter Pan. Neverland and Pirates. The rest is all Disney. And because it’s Disney, we are told to assume that it is magic.

Tinkerbell’s movies are not magical. They are pre-fab films in the spirit of the Buddies movies and the New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh. They write themselves in about an hour and half, masking their inadequacies behind Disney’s massive budget and Jame’s Barries literary genius.

That brings me back to my Tom Bombadill movie. What other classics could Disney soil? Here are a few spinnoff ideas:

Dr. Watson’s Anatomy
Sherlock Holme’s famed assistant learns the hard knocks of medicine and love in London’s most glamorous plastic surgery clinic.

Reepicheep: Chief of Cheddar!
Narnia’s smallest hero cooks up some serious controversy when he throws a party at Aslan’s Howl

A Tale of Two Sidneys
Young Sidney Carton learns the harsh consequences of being two-faced with his friends.

The Babies Karamazov
Dmitri, Ivan and Alyosha put on a nursery play to cheer up their half-brother “Smarty”

The Kids

My girls were glued to the television. Yours will be too. Older boys may get pulled along by the boy in the story or the cuteness of Tinkerbell, but it’s a long shot.

The Verdict: Mostly Harmless

Tinkerbell won’t drive you insane. The production value is decent; the singers can carry a tune, and the CGI animation is at least mid-grade. But the very idea of the films is almost enough to call them Cringe-Worthy. I can only assume Disney thinks they aren’t tarnishing anything, because they made the Peter Pan movie 40 years ago. An adaptation is one thing, but these guys invented and attached an entirely new world onto someone else’s story, and barely even tipped their hat to the original work. I’m no James Barrie apologist, but I hope for his family’s sake that his estate is receiving massive royalty checks from “Tinkerbell.” Or at least some super nice knick-knacks.

Buy Tinkerbell for your little blue-collar fairy today!