Tinker Bell

Have you ever wondered how snowflakes are made, or how a flower gets it color—it is the work of fairies, of course. The fairies, who make their home in Pixie Hollow, are sorted into guilds, each responsible for the insignificant as well as the sublime in the natural world. When Tinker Bell (voiced by Whitman) tries to change who she is because she is unimpressed with her guild's talent, her GFFs (good fairy friends) teach her how important every talent is, no matter how big or small it may be. (Stacey Pendry)

Exclusive special features on the Blu-ray Disc™ include four BD-Live™ functionalities: communicate with your friends remotely on-screen while the movie plays in Movie Chat, Movie Mail allows you to superimpose a personalized video message on one of the preselected clips from the film, Movie Challenge is an online trivia challenge against other users in the network, and accumulate Movie Reward Points in Disney Movie Rewards by participating in some of the many Disney BD-Live activities. Shared special features with the DVD include an interactive Magical Guide To Pixie Hollow, a four-minute featurette Ever Wonder, a DVD-ROM-based game Tinker Trainer, a three-minute music video Fly To Your Heart, a ten-minute making-of featurette Creating Pixie Hollow, six deleted scenes, and previews.

The computer-animated, anamorphically enhanced 1.78:1 DVD shows very good resolution and deep black levels, which, when combined with the nicely rendered shadows, gives the picture a natural, dimensional appearance. The color scheme used is broad, and colors are balanced well with good saturation. Fleshtones appear fairly natural, assuming that fairies have skin colors similar to humans, and contrast is balanced nicely. Compression artifacts are minor and not overly distracting, and edge enhancement is rarely noticeable. The H.264 AVC-encoded Blu-ray Disc shows fantastic resolution and maintains the solid black levels and shadow definition. Colors are highly detailed with good saturation, making this an enjoyable picture that kids will surely love. (Danny Richelieu)

The Dolby® Digital 5.1-channel soundtrack is mixed well at times, with well-crafted pans from the front of the room to the rear, matching on-screen action, but generally the surrounds are only used as a low-level extension of the front stage. The front three screen channels are mixed well, though, and while dialogue is directionalized, it is done in a way that is not a distraction. Dialogue generally sounds tinny, though, with an unfocused, smeared delivery. Still, fidelity is generally pristine and dynamic range is good. The LFE channel is incorporated often, but at levels too low to make much of an impact. The full-range channels do the majority of the heavy lifting for the bass, which is defined well. The front stage provides a good sense of depth and dimensionality, but it is a shame the surround channels are not incorporated with as much vitality. The Blu-ray Disc's uncompressed linear PCM encoding provides superb fidelity, but the same limitations in dialogue and the mix are audible. Dynamic range seems to be improved some, giving the soundtrack a more natural response than the DVD. (Danny Richelieu)