quite possibly one of the worst animated films ever made

You can’t blame Don Bluth for trying his hand at adapting Hans Christian Anderson. It worked well for his former employer, Disney, whose “Little Mermaid” sent them skyrocketing into a renaissance. But otherwise “Thumbelina” just makes you wonder what happened to the former animator- a legend who presented the first real challenge to Disney in the 80’s when he broke off from them and started his own production company. “The Secret of Nimh” all the way up to, at least, “Land Before Time” would make anyone think he was here to stay. Then he seemingly just went soft.

“An American Tale” was the first movie I ever saw in a theater, so Bluth holds a special place for me. He had the idea that kids weren’t idiots and his early films showed that. He also showed Disney that, which got them to up their game, making any 90’s kid grateful. I know there are people who think “All Dogs go to Heaven” was a total flop, “Rock-a-Doodle, which came next, definitely was. “Thumbelina” is totally disheartening.

His story for Thumbelina (Jodi Benson) is about a girl no bigger than a thumb, grown by a farm widow from a magical barley seed. She meets a fairy prince named Cornelius (Gary Imhoff), and they fall instantly in love but holding them apart are all sorts of toads, beetles, and moles who kidnap the girl in the hopes she will fall in love with them.

It’s no surprise it’s a film aimed squarely at the youngest of kids, but that doesn’t explain why the main character is such a drip. Bluth gives her no real personality, no sense of herself besides someone looking for someone to love. She seemingly just lets things happen to her, then acts defeatist when it all goes wrong. There’s no pluck or anything really to identify with, she’s just passive.

And it doesn’t just do this with the lead female character. The prince is also fairly bland, which makes their first scene together all the more confusing. They’re professing love and doing this whole love ballad, all the while the whole romance seems to be based on nothing more than two people being of the same height. Putting aside that romance is hardly what young kids go to the movies for- so far, this isn’t even a good one.

Making things all the worse is that the music in the film comes from Barry Manilow, master of the insipid love ballad. His crowning achievement here is “Let Me Be Your Wings”, which isn’t much of one at all. It’s a hollow rip on “A Whole New World”, without the wonder. But it’s better than some of his others, which sound more like little ditties or have inane lyrics like (after the rain goes, there are rainbows).

And speaking of inane, the narrator of the film is a swallow known as Jacquimo (Gino Conforti) who begins the film singing “You’re sure to do impossible things, if you follow your heart.” He then goes on to describe the song, without a touch of any irony: “I like what it is saying. It is saying, follow your heart, and nothing is impossible”. It’s done with a kind of unintentionally humorous sincerity meant to give the film meaning but would probably just make anyone say (back in the 90’s)- “No duh!”. That the meaning of the film is given away in the opening minutes also doesn’t do much for the rest of it.

Also, the rest of it doesn’t really do much for the rest of it. Animals of all kinds kidnap Thumbelina- a toad, given the voice, body type, and mannerisms of Spanish actress/singer Charo (who comes up with this shit? It’s even kinda disturbing!), there’s a beetle with a rapey-vibe that Gilbert Gottfried can’t even make funny, and then there’s a rich mole who wants to marry her.

It’s hard to determine what’s more astonishing about the whole thing. That Bluth thought any of this was funny or entertaining or that Thumbelina seems to walk through it, resigned to the fact the best she’s going to get in life is some inner-species suitor.


“Thumbelina” just seems like Bluth’s most remarkably misguided film; terrible characters, songs, plot, and nearly everything else. What happened to the guy who broke off from Disney because they were making cookie cutter movies? Why did he suddenly become just that? It’s a film that’s fascinating, for all the wrong reasons.