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Disney’s feisty femme Fairie gets a little butched up and a shiny new backstory in Tinkerbell.

We all know how the story goes – when a baby laughs for the first time, the laugh breaks into a thousand pieces and a fairie is born. While re-inventing the Neverfairies, this is one of the few things Disney hung onto. As the movie opens, we see an infant girl, in the classic London setting from Peter Pan , giggling. Loreena McKennit sings us into the opening as a strong wind carries a dandelion through London, over the sea and into Neverland. The dandelion breaks apart, and thus Tinkerbell is born.

So what’s a newborn fairie to do? Find out what kind of fairie she is, of course. Turns out, there’s more than one kind of fairie in Neverland – fairies who make the flowers bloom, fairies who make the wind blow, fairies who make the rain fall. Our gal is a tinker fairie – the kind of fairie who makes devices that help other fairies do their jobs. At first Tink is excited about her vocation, but when she learns that tinker fairires never go to the real world like the other fairies, she’s heartbroken. Something about the real world fills Tink with wonder, as does the bits of stuff called lost things that washes up on the shores of Neverland.

Since tinker fairies can’t go to the real world, Tinkerbell decides to become another kind of fairie – but what kind? She tries on each task – each with more disastrous results than the last, until she accidentally destroys the preparations for spring. Whether spring can be saved and Tink can find her place is up to her to figure out.

The movie, obviously, is about belonging and loving who you are. It’s a good message for a children’s movie to be sure – the lesson is acted out sweetly and poignantly. I imagine that little girls everywhere will love this movie. If there’s real cause for complaint, it’s in the reinvention of Tinkerbell. Once the feisty, sexy, jealous and sometimes violent svelte ultra hottie, she’s now a sweet, innocent, unassuming and utterly undemanding gal. The only time we see any hint of the old Tink is in her endless determination and when she goes bright red throwing a much needed and long overdue fit of anger. The movie also implies that Tink was born of Wendy’s laugh, which makes no sense whatsoever.

Extras include a Pixie Hollow guide by Tink and Queen Clarion (who was voiced by Anjelica Huston), and a DVD-rom game called tinker trainer. There are deleted scenes, a music video from Selena Gomez (the film features Disney’s own home grown princesses; in addition to Selena Gomez, Raven-Symone does a voice). There’s also a making of featurette and another called “Ever Wonder – How Fairies put the Wonder in Natural Wonders”.

It’s a pretty good movie, very cute and highly entertaining. Little girls everywhere will watch it over and over again.

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