Tinker Bell and the Pirate Fairy (2014)

The fifth installment in the Tinker Bell direct-to-video project arrives with modest ambitions and a competent execution. A dust-keeper fairy named Zarina, curious about the blue pixie dust and its possibilities, is fired by her supervisor Fairy Gary for conducting unauthorized experiments, so she decamps to the coast and takes command of a pirate crew. Tinker Bell and her companions give chase. Tom Hiddleston voices a cabin boy named James who is not what he seems, and the crocodile shows up on schedule. It is a children's film, and it behaves like one.

The progressive content here is gentle and largely structural. A female director, Peggy Holmes, steers an ensemble of fairies who are all women, and Zarina is a scientist whose curiosity is punished by a male authority figure before she claims a captaincy of her own. The movie is interested in girl power, not in dismantling anything. The voice cast includes Lucy Liu, Raven-Symoné, and Carlos Ponce, and the fairy ranks include characters of color, though the film never asks anyone to think about it. There is a song called 'Who I Am,' and there is a lesson about accepting the talents of others, delivered softly enough that a child might absorb it without noticing.

There is no sermonizing about climate, no class warfare, no engagement with identity beyond the standard empowerment register. The picture wants to entertain small children and sell a few lithographs, and it accomplishes both. Zarina's alchemy is finally accepted, the festival is performed, and Captain Hook is left in the ocean with a crocodile and a compliment about his hook. We have sat through worse. The film's cultural footprint is faint, its intentions mild, and its lessons about as threatening as a bedtime story. That is not a complaint. It is simply the record.