Review of Thumbelina (1994) by Adam F — 11 Sep 2013

"Thumbelina" is a perfect example of an animated children's fairy tale film that tried to emulate the success of Walt Disney Studios without understanding what made those films classics. It's not particularly interesting or memorable and the only real highlight is the animation and art direction. Once upon a time, a lonely old woman desperately wanted a child. A good witch granted her wish by giving her a magical seed. The seed grew into a flower and inside was a tiny girl, no taller than a thumb. Named Thumbelina by her mother, the young woman (voiced by Jodi Benson) feels isolated because of her tiny size. She dreams of being swept off her feet by a handsome prince, particularly one of her size (perhaps like the fairies in her fairytale books?). One night, Cornelius, the handsome prince of the fairies (voiced by Gary Imhoff) passes by Thumbelina's window and immediately falls in love with her voice. He enters her room and Thumbelina reciprocates his love. Cornelius proposes to her (well, he offers her a ring and it's announced a bit later in the movie that they are planning to get married so that sounds like a marriage proposal to me) and the two go exploring the woods together. Afterwards Cornelius drops Thumbelina at her home and goes back to tell his parents the wonderful news. No sooner has he left that Thumbelina is kidnapped by a Mrs. Toad who wants to make our heroine into a musical star and also marry her to her ugly son Grundel. Thumbelina escapes but is now alone and on the run in the forest. If true love is going to triumph and the two lovers are going to have their happy ending, Cornelius and Thumbelina will have to combat a large number of foes, sing a bunch of songs and make some woodland animal friends along the way too.

As I mentioned earlier, the movie really really wants to get that Disney money. On the surface, it's got all of the ingredients of an animated fairytale classic: talking animal sidekicks, several musical numbers, a romance plot with some elements of action and comedy thrown in and even the casting iconic voices in important roles. When it comes to the story and the characters (the really important elements of any film) it falls flat on its face. Thumbelina might have the voice of one of the best Disney films out there (Jodi Benson voiced Ariel in "The Little Mermaid") but her character has no personality whatsoever. She starts the movie fully grown so there's no sense of any development to her. You can't tell if it's been days, or years since she was born (so you don't know what the whole marriage and love angle really means to her) and while her voice is beautiful, the songs that are given to her aren't particularly memorable. Basically she is in the movie because fairy tales traditionally have a couple that fall in love. Speaking of which, for a film that boasts itself to be all about true love, there's nothing romantic about it. Right from the beginning your heart sinks and you realize how bad the movie is going to be due to the complete lack of character development and the first lame musical number. You prepare yourself mentally when you see the romance element stepping into the screen. "They won't like each other at first but after some peril and adventuring, they'll fall in love" you'll say to yourself. "Sure they'll bicker a lot at first, but I've seen this story before. At least I can predict the plot points and kind of make fun of them, impress my friends as I easily predict the plot!" You're wrong though, it's the total opposite. I don't mean that in a good way either. Inexplicably Thumbelina and Cornelius fall instantly in love at the very beginning of the movie, with no development of the romance whatsoever. Admitedly it would be tricky to develop any relationship between two characters as flat as our leads but the movie barely tries.

The story is very repetitive and even creepy at times. Thumbelina gets kidnapped or forced away from her destination at least three times and every single time she is directed towards an ugly creature that wants to marry her. She is all up for the idea at first but then changes her mind; runs away and the groom-to-be chases her. Cut to Cornelius, still looking for his fiancé while Thumbelina stumbles in the forest. Then repeat the cycle, add a quick intro and conclusion, slap in a couple of songs and that's the whole movie. For a large part of the movie the whole love angle takes on a really weird twist as every male creature in the film basically lusts after Thumbelina and decides that he wants to marry her. Little children will be bored by this and older audience members will have zoned out way too early to be even mildly interested.

There's no imagination in the film when it comes to the characters and it even skips out on the cool action by having several important events happening off-screen. I hope you weren't looking forward to seeing Cornelius escaping from an icy prison after being caught in a frozen river or in witnessing a battle between him and the grotesque Grundel as they battle for Thumbelina's hand because you won't. The film is padded out with bad songs that aren't memorable but have that annoying trend of sticking in your head long after the credits have stopped rolling. Many side characters bring nothing to the plot and the bulk of the funny animated sidekicks are grading instead of being fun (particularly Jacquimo, a flying French bird that provides nothing to the plot except). Gilbert Gottfried as Berkeley Beetle is just wasted voicing a character just makes you want to watch "Aladdin" instead.

For adults, there's nothing here except for the illustration. As usual, Don Bluth's characters are well drawn and beautiful. The animation is first-rate too, but there's no substance. Little kids will get distracted by the simple story and the colourful action however they'll just grow up and look back at the movie and be embarrassed thinking they liked this drivel. How's this for some creative writing about "Thumbelina": it doesn't measure up to the films it wants to imitate, the writing comes up short and there was little effort put into the story and characters. It might amuse small minds but I give it a thumbs down. You just got more laughs and entertainment out of those two sentences than you would watching the film. (Theatrical version on VHS, September 6, 2013).