Thumbelina (1994)

Good concept, poorly executed.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This movie is watered-down, shallow, and stupid. The plot is all over the place, and the characters are annoying. I'm pretty sure that all the good reviews come from trolls or children. The animation is so low-quality that I thought it was a lot older before I found the IMDb page. I don't recommend this boring nonsense. Also the songs are bad.

I remember loving this film as a child, back when I was blissfully ignorant of the hidden themes. Now that I've watched it as an adult I have to say this has to be one of the most abysmal children's films ever. The story is very inappropriate. Thumbelina gets passed around like the flu at an elementary school and sexually harassed by nearly every male character she comes in contact with. Almost every other character physically and/or mentally abuses her. I don't know what kind of message the writers were going for, but that is not a good one to be giving to children.Sure the follow your dreams theme is good, but I don't see how getting lost, abused, and then at the end of the movie marrying a guy you've spent maybe an hour with counts as someone following their dreams. Even if that guy just happens to be a prince (shocker). The rest of the story doesn't provide much more in terms of quality. There is the stereotypical and unrealistic love at first site relationship and the problem of not fitting in and wanting more. The overall story has a lot of holes and spacing issues, with a very inaccurate time line. The characters were mostly terrible or annoying. The mother, for all the love she claims to have for Thumbelina, doesn't even go looking for her when she goes missing. Instead she sits at home in the off chance someone else will find her, even though she told no one the girl was missing.The only redeeming factor in the movie are the ballads. "Let Me Be Your Wings, "Soon", and "Soon (Reprise)" are all great songs, even if they seem out of place with the tone of the rest of the film. Thanks, Barry Manilow.

this movie is so great!! I love the animation in it and I love the songs in it as well. Jodi Benson is a fantastic voice actress. She is so sweet and innocent as Thumbelina and you want her to meet her true love and fall in love. The prince in this is so great too and they have amazing chemistry! This is such a sweet and a simple story. I will always love it and it will always be a classic to me.

They do say that art is subjective, but in this film's case, it is VERY subjective. Yes, I was one of those people that loved this movie as a little kid, and being the Don Bluth fan that I am, I wanted to give it a try again as an adult, and I must say, while it is marginally better than "Bartok the Magnificent"and "A Troll in Central Park", it fails to have the lasting impact of the 80's Don Bluth films, and "Anastasia"."Thumbelina", as a film, is mediocre at best. I know that the Hans Christian Anderson version didn't have a lot of substance to it either, but that story was written in a time were fairy tales were more simpler and by-the-book. This movie's main problem was that it tries to stick too close to the original fairy tale, that it comes off as boring and well, rather, predictable. Thumbelina herself, unfortunately, is not very interesting as a heroine. She's constantly getting kidnapped by shady-looking animals, and never really learning from her mistakes (except when it involves love or romance). Then we have her love interest, Cornielious, who's hardly in the movie, an obnoxious love-crazy Swallow named Jaquimoe, and a group of antagonistic animals who have only one common goal: Steal Thumbelina's hand in marriage and/or use her talents for money! I know "Rock-A-Doodle" and "Pebble and the Penguin" weren't particularly spectacular either, but at least they had some creativity put into their stories. "Rock-A-Doodle" even had a handful of likable characters, this movie only had one likable character (Mr. Beetle). The point is, Don Bluth was usually known for making original stories. Stories that often separate themselves from the Disney formula. This movie tries so hard to be like a Disney film, that it ends up looking like a shallow ripoff.So Don, where ever you are right now, don't stop doing what you love, and please stick with what you're really good at.