Word: aladdin
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...this cottage industry has exploded. Welcome to the Toon Age of worldwide retailing, an age when Warner's fearsome Tasmanian Devil becomes a cult figure for kids, dads and inner-city gang members; when no little girl feels chic without her Princess Jasmine dress (from the smash Disney film Aladdin); when Paris designer Karl Lagerfeld ornaments the classic Chanel hat with impish Mickey Mouse ears. Hollywood's animated ephemera are Big Business everywhere: in the Disney themelands and at Warner's Six Flags parks, at chains like K Mart and Toys "R" Us, in sports-stadium concession stands (Michael Jordan...
...that appeals to both adults and children. However, the movie's confused plot and lack of engaging characters, despite a number of talented voices, prevent it from achieving this goal. A film of a few good moments, "Thumbelina" lacks the sustained charm of a "Beauty and the Beast" or "Aladdin...
...movie's opening is promising--using the same computer animation techniques that made "Aladdin'"s magic carpet-ride sequences so impressive, the "camera" follows the flight of a bird, zooming and swooping in toward an animated Paris. This perspective is realistic enough to make the viewer slightly queasy, but, sadly, seems to have eaten up most of the film's budget--the rest of the movie is nowhere near as technically advanced. The backgrounds are largely static, with the animated characters looking out of place moving over them, as is especially evident in the musical number "Thumbelina" which introduces...
...through her journeys, accentuating her movements and making them more realistic. The movie's highlight, however, is the flight of fancy she takes with the Fairy Prince Cornelius, to the accompaniment of "Let Me Be Your Wings." During a number that cannot help but be compared to "Aladdin'"s "A Whole New World," the characters, in true romantic style, fall in love while flying/dancing/singing their way across the night sky. Never mind that they've known each other all of about five minutes; their ice-skating-like pas de deux across the golden, glittering surface of a lake is much...
...annoying, and seems to pop in and out without warning or respect for what's going on. With a large number of cameos by noted personalities, it is surprising that so few of these char acters are memorable or even fun to watch. EvenGilbert Gottfried (who played lago in "Aladdin")is wasted on stupid dialogue as the annoyingBerkeley Beetle. An exception to this is CarolChanning's Mrs. Fieldmouse--her attempts toconvince Thumbelina to marry Mr. Mole are at leastamusing, and she carries off the small roleconvincingly...