Thumbelina (1994)

Thumbelina is the story of a teenage girl who longs to find true love, which of course is complicated by the fact that she is literally the size of a thumb and believes she is the only one that small in the entire world. But this is a world where full grown girls are born from flowers, so surely there's someone--somewhere--out there who's around her size and looking for a lifetime commitment, right?



Enter Prince Cornelius, our dashing young hero who looks like the love child of Peter Pan and Tinker Bell. Prince Cornelius is on joy ride on BuzzBee his 'bumble' (clever) when he overhears Thumbelina singing. Naturally, he is immediately enchanted by her beautiful voice and decides to sneak into her room for a closer look. (Eat your heart out, Edward). Needless to say, his entrance is a little awkward, and it doesn't help that he introduces himself by whipping out his sword and making a bad pun.


"May I cut in?" Get it.

Thumbelina is a little freaked out at first to find a complete stranger in her bedroom waving a sword in her face, but she soon gets over that and proceeds to flirt. They bond over a midnight flight about the countryside and share a romantic duet which struck me as a shameless rip off of another animated film that had something rather similar.


"A whole new wor--let me be your wings!"


By the end of the song, they are in love and totally ready to get married. Of course, Cornelius has to break the news to his parents first. So, he and Thumbelina exchange love tokens (she gives him a flower necklace and he gives her his piney-ring) and he leaves, promising to come for her tomorrow.

Unfortunately for both of them, Thumbelina is the Queen of Mixed Signals and happened to briefly flirt with a toad while she and Cornelius were signing. Seriously, find the song on Youtube and watch her blow him a kiss. Of course, in her defense, the toad takes the entire thing completely too far, declares his love for her, and his mother kidnaps her.
Thus beings the wacky adventures of Thumbelina trying to get back home, which by the way, she never does. Nope, if you haven't seen the movie, I'll just spoil the ending for you right now: Thumbelina ends up at the Vale of the Fairies, spontaneously grows wings, and marries Prince Cornelius.

So....

That doesn't sound too bad, right?

Wrong.




Mama Toad is the one who jump-starts this parade of craziness when she kidnaps Thumbelina for her son. Thumbelina is a bit unsettled, at first, but then Mama Toad begins to tell her about the glorious life of fame and fortune she's sure to have if she stays with them. She also happens to mention that if she marries the prince, Thumbelina will have to suffer through the horrors of domestic chores, which sways our dear heroine long enough to preform a song with the toads.



Of course, afterwards, reality comes crashing down around her when Mama Toad declares that Thumbelina will be marrying her son. Ignoring her protests, they strand Thumbelina on a lily-pad and rush off to gather the weddings guests.

Poor thing.

But, as luck would have it, a passing swallow happens to overhear Thumbelina's cries for help. Upon hearing her woes, the swallow named Jaquimo decides to fly her off the lily-pad and.... oh, wait he doesn't do that. Actually he does something stupid that almost gets them killed. Then, instead of coming to his senses and flying her back home (or at least above the tree line so she could try and find her house) he launches into this silly song about how you should 'follow your heart'.



So, Thumbelina follows his advise, which leads her straight to this guy...


Looks Legit...


This is Berkeley Beetle, he's voiced by Gilbert Gottfried, and he only wants to help. Again, Thumbelina is initially hesitant upon first meeting him, which might have something to do with the blatant sexual harassment he lavishes on her. But as soon as he compliments her voice she begins to think he's okay.

By this time, we begin to see that our dear heroine is a poor judge of character. Needless to say, it doesn't work out and she finds herself alone once more. Only now Winter has come and she's facing the real possibility of freezing to death.

However, Thumbelina is saved from a tragic end by the kindly Miss. Fieldmouse.



Being the generous soul she is, Miss. Fieldmouse invites her to stay in her home for the winter and cheerfully informs her that her dearest Prince Cornelius, who has been searching for Thumbelina this whole time, has been found dead.


Not quite an exaggeration... could have fooled me.


While underground Miss. Fieldmouse introduces the newly single Thumbelina to Mr. Mole, who joins the long list of men--err--animals... creatures who want to marry her. He also has the disturbing hobby of collecting and displaying dead insects, which is made all the more horrifying by the fact that in this world, all the creatures have personalities.



Anyway, he strikes a deal with Miss. Fieldmouse to convince Thumbelina to marry him.
But of course, Thumbelina is still in love with Cornelius and would never--


Oh...

Did I also forget to mention that the useless swallow from before was underground with her and offered to fly her out of there? Yeah...

But Thumbelina's guilt begins to manifest itself in the form of auditory and visual hallucinations of Cornelius and she decides to stop the wedding, telling everyone that she's cannot marry someone she doesn't love.

It's around that point that every side character in the movie sort of crashes through the ceiling--the toad, the beetle, Cornelius, and the... jitterbugs (really?). Thumbelina manages to just miss her beloved's grand entrance and makes her escape back up to the surface whereupon she's discovered by...



Jaquimo, who flies her away from the prince and to the Vale of the Fairies. This is the part where we learn that Thumbelina's voice has some sort of Winter killing magic to it. Oh, and Cornelius shows up. They kiss. Thumbelina sprouts some wings. Then they get hitched.




Conclusions:
Okay, I was six when this movie came out and I thought it was pretty great at the time. Even now I'm still charmed by a few parts of the movie, my favorite part being the song 'Soon'. Having said that, I'm also able to clearly see the flaws in this movie. 
The art in this movie is an uncomfortable clash of Disney-ish designs for the main characters and 1930's cartoon style for all the side characters. 



More than a little awkward...


And most of the songs are just awful. "Soon" is the best song in the entire movie, but from there it all goes down-hill. I have no love for "Let me be your Wings" or it's hundred and one reprises, and the other songs are just worthless. The worst song in the entire movie--"Follow your Heart".


Yes, I hate that song more than "Yer Beautiful, Baby" and "Marry the Mole". 
Also, Thumbelina's helpless disposition gets really old really fast along with her bipolar reactions to the various situations in which she finds herself. She was shaking her booty right along with Miss Fieldmouse during 'Marry the Mole'--don't think I didn't notice. I just wish the movie had continued on for a few more minutes so we could hear the awkward conversation that must have occurred between her and Cornelius concerning her almost marriage to Mr. Mole. 


"Well, you were dead, dearest. And, after all, a girl needs a man to provide for her. You understand, right?"


Yeah, that would have been great. 


But really, all of that aside, the movie can be enjoyable if you're willing to let a whole lot slide and not take it too seriously.


Overall Rating: 4.5/10