Thumbelina (1994)

I might have seen a little bit of this film when I was younger and after having forgotten about it for many years, I re-discovered it on IMDb and have wanted to see it for ages. When I was flicking through the channels last week, I caught this film from the beginning on Movie Mix (a film channel on Freeview in the UK) but only watched about the first 20 minutes because I had a Zumba class to attend. I soon decided to rent the film from LoveFilm and upon watching it the whole way through, I quite enjoyed it despite its scenes of filler and slightly sluggish pacing.The animation is satisfactory if not as superior as that in 'All Dogs Go To Heaven' and 'Anastasia (my absolute favourite Don Bluth films).' It was mostly fluid with good cel shading and eye-catching colour schemes (such as the warmth of Cornelius's parents) but a tad flickery and blurry in places. A lot of the background art is intricate but some of it had CGI that stuck out a little too much. The musical score by, I believe, Barry Manilow is beautiful with the odd use of angelic choral vocals and the songs were well worth listening if most of them were split all over the place. My favourites are the uplifting 'Follow Your Heart (both the slower version at the beginning despite it being in a part I initially found irrelevant to the main plot and the faster version later on in the film),' the whimsically upbeat 'Thumbelina,' the lovely 'Soon (if it was initially forgettable but the reprise by Thumbelina's mother is suitably moving),' the sensational 'Let Me Be Your Wings (plus the instrumental orchestral version at the beginning and the typical 90s-pop-ballad-sounding version over the end credits),' the energetic and authentic 'On The Road,' the hip-hop inspired song performed at the beetle club and the unintentionally funny 'Marry the Mole,' in which the line about Romeo and Juliet being "very, very dead" is terrible but the beginning brilliantly sounds like 'The Wedding March/Here Comes the Bride.' While the dialogue has a few fairytale clichés, it is clever and amusing in parts. The best aspects of the story are Thumbelina wanting to marry Cornelius and wanting to go home when she is kidnapped but in addition to the filler, I felt that certain scenes didn't really go anywhere and I found the ending rushed but the story had some clever links such as the CGI-ish if pretty snowflakes separating Thumbelina wishing she could be back with her mother and her mother singing the reprise of 'Soon'. Moving on to the voice acting, Jodi Benson beautifully voiced the ambitious Thumbelina if she sounded like a higher pitched Ariel while Gilbert Gottfried's voice for Mr. Beetle sounded similar to his voice for Iago in 'Aladdin.' On a slightly more positive note, I liked Gino Conforti's French accent for Jacquimo the swallow and Charo's Spanish Accent for Mrs. (or Ma.) Toad. I also liked the tiny story book used at the beginning and the end as well as the book illustrations, some of which had a stained glass look to them.Overall this isn't quite Bluth's best but it was worth watching for the music and the main plot. 8/10.

This film is amazing to put it bluntly. Speaking as a 17 year old girl, I first watched this film when I was around 5/6 and instantly fell in love with the protagonist (Thumbelina) and the extremely catchy songs throughout. Around 11 years later, I'm still completely besotted with the film.It is a beautiful film and definitely worth a watch. People who have slated the film for different reasons have taken the film too seriously considering it is intended for a younger audience, which needs to be taken into consideration. Over all, however, I give this film a 10. Guaranteed it is worth a watch, you will love it.

Good Grief- where to begin. Many of the critical reviews here have touched on most of what I disliked so immensely about the movie. Stupid dialogue, annoying characters (even Thumbelina herself), very odd pacing to the movie (holes), and Thumbelina couldn't keep her dress down. Weird scenes- she just meets the Prince Fairy and starts singing and they put their hands all over each other. She later is kidnapped but instead of being upset that she can't marry her prince she starts dancing and singing and thanking the mother toad- what??!!! Now, I love most of the princess movies and cartoons out there- but this one is very, very poorly made. It was torture to sit through it with my 6 year old daughter- it will be "disappearing" from our shelf this week.

If there was ever proof that the "it doesn't matter cause the kid's won't notice" philosophy has any reason to exist, Thumbelina just might be it. I distinctly remember liking this movie, if not exactly loving it, when it was first released. But oh, how time changes things.Not everything about Thumbelina is entirely terrible. Jodi Benson still has a lovely voice and the "I want" song and love ballad, though moderately bland, remain largely unoffensive to the ear. Even Charo's performance had me cracking a smile. But beyond that...Characterwise, everyone is a nutcase, with the exception of the Mother, who gets the least screen time of anyone. Thumbelina is frankly dumb as a post, lacking anything that resembles a mind of her own. The other villains and protagonists alike garner no prizes in the brain category, but they make up for it with either general maliciousness or extra-large doe eyes. Jacquiamo does have the distinction of being the animated world's Jar-Jar Binks with his overblown french faerieness.Visually, the film isn't much of a stunner either. The leads, while not precisely ugly, have the absolute most ridiculous hairstyles I have seen outside of an indie space flick. The computer scenes, like the opening sequence and the frog boat are so jarringly CGI that the simply jerk you out of the experience of the movie to goggle at the disjunct. Don Bluth is well loved for his distinct visual style that at one point appeared to rival the Disney Empire. Part of what I love about films like All Dogs Go To Heaven is that they are so entirely unlike Disney fare, unlike most anything else out there at all. Thumbelina represents a different Bluth, one who began to doubt that he could overtake the big bad corporation, and scrambled together a bad imitation. It just doesn't take to his style, plus no one can ever out-Disney Disney.