The Film
Few Disney characters are as iconic as Tinker Bell, the mischievous little fairy from Peter Pan. And now, over a century after J.M. Barrie's original play, and 55 years after Disney's popular animated film version of Peter Pan, Tinker Bell finally gets a film of her own. And as is all the rage lately, it's an "origin story" - a tale of how the little fairy came to be.
Apparently fairies are born from a child's first laugh and Tinker Bell ("Tink," to her friends) is no exception. The film begins with a baby's laughter carried away in the wind on the back of a dandelion's fluffy spore. That magic-infused spore floats all the way to Neverland, where, with the help of the all-powerful fairy queen, it coalesces into the light-haired fairy we all know and love.
In a choosing ceremony reminiscent of Hogwart's magic hat in the Harry Potter tales, Tink learns that her particular talent lies with the Tinker fairies, rather than the more glamorous garden, animal or water fairies. Tink's challenge in the film is to accept this mantle, and perhaps, to make the most of it - to become the best darn tinker fairy ever. Gee whiz, do you think she'll succeed?
The film is squarely targeted toward young girls, and I have to say my three-year-old daughter did enjoy it as did my nearly 5-year-old son. My wife drifted off to sleep (but that happens for most movies) and I tried to keep in mind that I'm not the target demographic of this movie. The story and message were not exactly complicated, nor profound, but again, they don't need to be in order to entertain 3 to 12-year-old girls and boys. It's a simple film with a healthy message that should delight a younger audience.
The Picture
The film may have gone straight to video (or, in this case Blu-ray), but you wouldn't know that from the quality of its animation. The 1080p AVC-encoded transfer wonderfully captures the details of this animation with individual strands of hair visible in the animals and fairy characters in the film, and difficult textures such as water and flower petals captured elegantly. Colors are rendered vividly, particularly the verdant greens so present through the tinker fairies' domain in Pixie Hollow and shadow details are preserved well without noticeable artifacts. It doesn't quite have the supreme detail of a modern A-List Disney or Pixar title, but it's not far off.
The Sound
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound is used to good effect here (there is also a Dolby Digital 5.1 track available), conveying Joel McNeely’s score well, and capturing dialog with excellent clarity. I found certain sonic cues a bit distracting, such as when head tinker Fairy Mary's voice drifts around from side to side at one point - the transition was not as smooth as it could have been. but overall, the soundtrack and audio quality are high, and will not detract from one's enjoyment of the film.
The Extras
There are some enjoyable extras here and a few that don't work quite as well. The BD-Java game "Tinker Trainer" wouldn't work at all for me on a Panasonic DMP-BD55 Blu-ray player (returning to the main menu when I attempted to continue past the intro). I figured out that I could skip the intro piece, and then it behaved better, though it was still a bit hard to control with a typical Blu-ray player remote. A few deleted scenes are included on the disc as well, some fully animated, some only roughly rendered. Interesting but better left out as they wouldn't have added much to the film.
"A Magical Guide to Pixie Hollow" is an interactive map featuring the voices of Tink and Queen Clarion who explain the various fairy domains within Pixie Hollow, and "Ever Wonder" is not a Seinfeld routine, but a short piece combining live actors with animation, showing how fairies add a little magic to our daily lives. Also included are "Creating Pixie Hollow" a brief Making-Of featurette and a Selena Gomez video for her song, "Fly to Your Heart."
The disc also features BD-Live access. If this is your first time into Disney's BD-Live universe, then be prepared to wait while your player downloads some necessary software (but at least there's music and blinking stars to entertain you while it's downloading), then you'll need click through a fairly extensive EULA (End User License Agreement). You'll also need to create your own Disney BD-Live ID. Apparently Disney's Privacy Police did not like me using my last name in my BD-Live ID (for "security purposes") as the ID "MrBoylan" was rejected by their censors. Now I'm officially known as Guest 9223 (shhhh, don't tell anyone it's me).
Once in Disney's BD-Live universe, I was able to enter the Movie Challenge section to play an interactive trivia game, by myself (normally I guess there would be other players but no one else was playing when I went in late one night). Also available were links to Disney's Movie Chat, Movie Mail, and Movie Rewards Live, but captions for these sections were cut off the bottom of the screen when playing the disc on the Panasonic DMP-BD55 Blu-ray player (they appeared properly on a Sony PS3). Yet another little compatibility oddity in the wild wooly world of Blu-ray Disc.
The BD-Live content was worse on a Panasonic DMP-BD50 - it simply wouldn't work, generating a helpful error message instead: "BD-Live is not available in your location." What location is that? My living room? But it did work in a Panasonic DMP-BD55 and a Sony PS3 in the home theater (on the very same home network, I might add). Clearly, Blu-ray and BD-Live are experiencing some growing pains. But at least the network connection ensures that players will be able to have the ir firmware upgraded automatically as new versions improve disc compability with different players.
Final Thoughts
As a gift for a fairy-obsessed little girl or boy, Tinker Bell on Blu-ray can't miss. But the older kids (and perhaps any adults) in the room may find the film a tad less enthralling, particularly if the younger kids want to watch it over and over as they are sure to do. It certainly doesn't reach the excitement of Disney's past and modern classics such as Sleeping Beauty or The Lion King or even The Little Mermaid. The animation, picture and sound quality do benefit from the high def Blu-ray treatment and the bonus features provide some additional enjoyment, despite the quirkiness of BD-Live. It's a solid, if not exceptional, addition to the Disney animation catalog.
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