Legend of the NeverBeast
Director: Steve Loter
Actors: Mae Whitman, Rosario Dawson, Ginnifer Goodwin
Release Date: Saturday 30th November 2013
Genre(s): Animation
Running time: 76 minutes
Despite being another solid outing in the Tinker Bell franchise (seven and counting), Legend of the Neverbeast, like Pirate Fairy before it, can’t top the series best, Secret of the Wings.
The curious Fawn (Goodwin, He’s Just Not That Into You) goes exploring and hears the sounds of an animal in distress. In a deep cave, she discovers the NeverBeast, a giant cat creature with a thorn stuck in its paw. Pulling the thorn out, Fawn becomes friends with the scary thing, helping it build four towers of stones. Meanwhile, a group of elite Scout Fairies – the Navy Seals of the bunch – are on the lookout for the NeverBeast, warning everyone that it will bring great destruction upon Pixie Hollow.
So where does Tinker Bell (Whitman) figure in all of this? If that synopsis sounds a little Tink light it’s because she’s not really involved: she and the other fairies (the Blanche Dubois one, the Amy Winehouse one) are reduced to extended cameos, arriving late to the game when Fawn needs help hiding the beast from Rosario Dawson’s bo-staff-wielding Nyx. This is very much Fawn’s movie, who makes her first appearance since 2010’s The Great Fairy Rescue. Why? Maybe to shift some dolls come Christmas? No. Can’t be. Stop being so cynical all the time.
It’s pretty scant on the action front until the last few minutes but NeverBeast makes up for that in scaring the kids: the beast’s painful howls are quite haunting, the kind that burrow into little minds and be remembered come bedtime, and the discovery of its lair, deep down in that dark cave, is quite spooky. Beware.
Before the screening there was announcement that the version that is about to commence is not the version that will go on general release; Scary Spice is to voice a character (which one I’ve forgotten) but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet/has yet to be slipped into the mix. So. There you go. You’ve that to look forward to.
