THE MOVIE

TinkerBell with Terence in Lost Treasure.

Don't ask me why but our original review of TinkerBell on Blu-Ray remains one of our most regularly viewed pages on the site to this day. Whatever the case may be it's clear that Disney exceeded expectations for the release with an entertaining movie, and superb presentation on the disc. Now, some twelve months later, we have the second of a planned five movies to be released direct to DVD (although, this did get a limited theatrical run in Australia for a couple of weeks and also in America to be considered for the 2010 Oscars, no doubt for Best Animated Feature). So what is this second movie about? Read on...

Tinker Bell is thrilled! She has been selected to create the prestigious Autumn Scepter to commemorate the rare Blue Moon. Her friend Terence, while trying to help Tink, only gets on her nerves which leads temperamental Tink to explode in frustration. Her angry words shatter their friendship. In the midst of her rage, Tink accidentally destroys the scepters fragile moonstone. Weeks of work gone. Now, to fix the moonstone, Tink must embark on a perilous quest for the enchanted mirror of Incanta, But on this journey, she discovers there is no greater treasure than a true friend.

Animation on Tink is very impressive.

While the storyline isn't the most detailed every put to film it is easy to follow, has a few exciting moments and a few emotional ones too. As one would expect from a Disney movie aimed at a younger audience the ending is a happy one, but it will leave you on the edge of your seat right until the end. The movie has a few songs scattered throughout but they never become overbearing or tiresome which is always an issue when I watch movies.

One thing that really is impressing with Disney's direct to DVD/Blu-Ray TinkerBell releases is the quality of the CG. Sure it lacks some shading and texturing in places, but I defy you not to find a more vibrant, more colourful, and more child-friendly CG release anywhere. With rumours of the first movie costing around $US50 million to create, the lavish expense has also been transferred to this movie with plenty of busy scenes, and yet also subtle emotion and animations on the characters.

Of course I, a male in his early thirties, is hardly the target demographic for this movie, but it was watchable and I did love the little Indiana Jones reference (you'll know it when you see it). In terms of storyline I actually enjoyed this a fractionally more then the first movie, but they are very comparable. If you liked the first movie, then this sequel should also keep you entertained.

VIDEO

Visually Tinkerbell.

As with the first movie TinkerBell and the Lost Treasure comes to Blu-Ray encoded with the AVC MPEG-4 codec at the screen-filling aspect ratio of 1.78:1 at 1920 x 1080p resolution. Again, this is a reference quality disc from start to finish. Being transferred directly from a digital source the print is absolutely pristine with not a single film blemish as expected. Impressively there are no visible compression artifacts either which is no doubt due to the very high bitrate which again hovers well above 30Mbps.

Any perceptible issues with the image quality in this movie is more to do with the original background and CG plates rather then compression. If there is one difference between these movies and big theatrical releases it's that there is a lack of texturing and background detail. Having said that, younger viewers will never notice any deficiencies.

TinkerBell and the Lost Treasure looks great.

AUDIO
While the previous Tinkerbell included a Linear PCM track at 6.9Mbps this second movie in the series has seen the movies audio encoded in DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (24-bit/48Khz). This really is a delightful audio experience not least of which due to the lively music but also the wonderful audio effects, and the crystal clear voiceovers. Tinker Bell is again voiced by Mae Whitman while other voiceovers are provided by Lucy Liu (Ally McBeal), America Ferrera (Ugly Betty), Raven-Symone (Dr. Dolittle), Jesse McCartney (Summerland), and Anjelica Huston (The Darjeeling Limited).

Other tracks on this disc include Dutch and French DTS 5.1 tracks encoded at 1.5Mbps, and Russian, Arabic and Hindi Dolby Digital 5.1 at 640kbps. Each track is quite superb, so whichever you are capable of playing should impress you. Subtitles are provided in English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Dutch, French, Arabic, Russian and Ukrainian. We sampled the English track and didn't notice any issues with clear text, good pacing and accuracy to the on-screen dialogue.

EXTRAS

Some scenes in TinkerBell are quite busy.

There isn't a lot in the way of extras on this disc which is a little disappointing, but still what's there is perfectly aimed at the target audience - young girls.

Bonus Short: Magical Guide to Pixie Hollow (4:47/HD): This short video shows the various locations around Pixie Hollow. Some of the scenes are completed in full CG, while the majority is done in an animated storyboard fashion. It looks pretty good, is well narrated, and gives a bit of an insight into Pixie Hollow.

Outtakes and Bloopers (20:12/HD): A collection of mildly entertaining scenes are presented here in HD and it looks great. Eight deleted scenes, mostly presented in storyboard form, are presented here with introductions from the filmmakers. It's a nice collection overall.

TinkerBell with the other fairies.

Backstage Disney: Pixie Hollow Comes To Walt Disney World (8:20/HD): This is a nice little look at the creation and location that is Pixie Hollow at Disney's theme park. There's a bit of detail here about how they created all the parts of the area to match up to the movies.

Music Video "The Gift Of A Friend" by Demi Lovato (3:23/HD): A rather nice video clip of this song by another Disney Starlet. Sadly the audio is only 448kbps and sounds a bit lifeless, but it's a nice enough clip and song.

OVERALL
If you have a young daughter, niece, sister or friend then TinkerBell and the Lost Treasure should have them enchanted from start to finish. It's a fun movie, with brilliant audio visual presentation (even videophones may want to use this as a demo disc) and is worth adding to your collection.

Review By: Dave Warner

THE MOVIE	7/10
THE VIDEO	10/10
THE AUDIO	8/10
THE EXTRAS	5/10
OVERALL	7.5/10