Review of Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014) by Kyle M — 25 Sep 2015

The Disney Fairies franchise has the same way of moving like the wings of a fairy can fly until the fairy ran out of pixie dust. Well that's what the franchise forgot to do when going along with this latest addition to the films, but managed to go through it. You can see the message within the film, "The Pirate Fairy," that the franchise wants more pixie dust like a fairy does when she/he wants to fly and use their talents. This pleading for more pixie dust was the topic of the film.

In the film, we meet a new, freely-spirited fairy - with lots of curiosity on the franchise's "specific" mythos that were made-up specifically for this film - Zarina (voiced by Christina Hendricks). But her curiosity led her to be sort-of exiled, and gotten rogue a year later in the Never Land side of pirates, where we see a young Captain Hook under her command (voiced by "Loki" from Marvel). Her unchanged curiosity also led her to a target of the blue pixie dust (the pixie dusts multiplier), and it's up to Tinker Bell (voiced by Mae Whitman, famously known from "Avatar: The Last Airbender) and her group of fairy friends to get the dust back or their fairy-kind won't be able to fly. But at their first attempt to get it back, Zarina created and used a dust that switches their talents.

So what it means is that Tinker Bell, the star of the franchise, was probably aware of pixie dust running out of the franchise and went on that mission to reload it, before they go on with another chapter.

It just seem someone forgot to do this duty when pixie dust can only last for two films. "Peter Pan," the original classic that started this whole franchise, started the first batch while its no-better-but-still-good sequel "Return to Never Land" used the last of it. So the batch was reloaded for the spin-off prequel "Tinker Bell," and the sequel "Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure" used the rest of it. Same pattern with "Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue" and "Secret of the Wings." The results of quality goes like this when following this pattern: the first of the pair is always better than its partnering successor because of being the first to use the fresh of the batch (kind of like a similar pattern to the Star Trek movies).

The talents of the franchise are the heart - to make a warm the viewer's heart with a smile and maybe a laugh - and the charm - to be appealing to the viewer by its creativity in story and animation. Zarina's position has the design of sort-of necessary better animation, giving her the reason to take the dust that overpowers the regular dust so she can bargain. Luckily, Disney uses "his" immortalized talent (magic) to help the two fairies, the story, and the heart.

"The Pirate Fairy" is like its predecessors in heart and charm of being part of a good, long prequel to Disney's "Peter Pan." It works like any other prequels. But for this film, it only works on the characterization.

Christina Hendricks is a fashion designer and a former "Project Runaway" winner. She perfectly designed the looks of her character and Tinker Bell and her fairy group when their talents were switched. I gotta say that's a good production value for an animated film.

I had to laugh (my apology for doing that) at Tom Hiddleston's involvement to this film when I last saw him at the end of "Thor: The Dark World" as the villainous god of mischievous Loki - the popular villain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Hiddleston voiced a good Captain Hook with almost matching vocals of both Hans Conried in 1953 and Corey Burton in modern. But still, he'd went that low from a greater film to a film for mostly little girls and kids and probably a little for everyone? If you've seen that Thor sequel, you probably remember that moment when Thor (Chris Hemsworth) asked Loki is he mad, and got a response of "Possibly" with a small crack of a smile trying to appear on Loki's face. That moment reflects Hiddleston's decision to go to "The Pirate Fairy" to sing and laugh and "aargh" as a pirate. His involvement was probably the Disney Fairies franchise's way of using him as a benefit while running with the remaining pixie dust.

"The Pirate Fairy" uses the same dusts like its predecessors and maintained the enjoyment level at 4 stars, while standing next to the odd-numbered entries as the series' best in terms to direct connections to the original animated classic. (A-).