A
version of this review appeared in The Age,
September 20, 2012.
In
the original version of my review of a previous film in
this computer-animated series, TinkerBell and the Great Fairy
Rescue, I puzzled over what the fairy from J.M. Barrie's Peter
Pan was doing in Britain rather than Neverland. Quite rightly,
an online reader took me to task: Tink and her friends make an annual
pilgrimage to bring summer to the mainland, a plot point I had
carelessly forgotten.
Changing
seasons again feature in TinkerBell and the Secret of the Wings,
in which our ever-inquisitive heroine (voiced by Mae Whitman) embarks
on a forbidden journey from her home in Pixie Hollow, where the sun
is always shining, to the Winter Woods, forever covered in snow.
Magically, Tink's wings start to sparkle as she comes into contact
with her previously unknown sister Periwinkle (Lucy Hale). Strictly
speaking, of course, fairies don't have parents, but it seems that
the pair were “born from the same laugh,” which you can interpret
as you will.
Space
and a certain nausea prevent me from recounting the rest of the plot
in detail. Suffice to say that Tink and Peri come close to
unleashing apocalypse with their transgressive bond, before the
screenwriters relent and decide that love can, after all, cross
borders. The Secret of the Wings is better scripted and
animated than its predecessor, and the directors Peggy Holmes and
Bobs Gannaway deserve credit for smuggling in a more progressive
message than you'll generally find in a Disney B-feature. Still, the
usual warning applies: adults should steer clear.
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