This is the second Winx Club movie, and like the first (Winx Club: The Secret of the Lost Kingdom) it is a self-contained, high-quality experience independent of the series. Both movies differentiate themselves with computer-generated graphics in contrast to the television show’s traditional animation (and this take is not about debating which style is best).
Flora was looking good (despite a tragic peroxide accident). Someone needs to remind the animators that her hair is supposed to be brown.
We will say that if you are going to do something, do it well. This movie for the most part has strong art design. You can make a lot of ideas look good with computer graphics. However if an idea really stinks, even the graphics may not save it. But good ideas abound, like interesting and fitting manifestations of the different character’s powers. The magics were not reduced to different colored balls of light. Such copouts plagued the television series’ fourth season.
Oh, and when in doubt, take inspiration from a classic.
Set designs and artistic touches were a visual treat. Almost all the places visited, and they were quite varied, were rich in their own way. From the mundane, like Bloom’s earthly parents home, to the fantastic like Bloom’s biological parent’s castle. Plus there were surprise colourful transitions like that GIF at the top.
Average park? Average looks? Average clothes? There is nothing average about the Winx girls. Isn't this how everyone dolls themselves up for a stroll in the fabulously average park?
The action scenes were some of the best choreographed of the franchise. It was not just blast after blast. There was maneuvering, defense and strategy. Important to us as well was the original Company of Light was not dissed. King Oritel, now restored and in his prime was not treated as second-tier to highlight the Winx girls. Instead he was out there kicking butt as one would expect from the leader of that legendary band.
King Oritel is back, and he remembered how to pose.
However this movie experience is not without flaw. Someone over in the costume design department:
- got too cute
- got drunk
- passed the work off to an intern
- is colorblind
We say this because some of the outfits were just dreadful in contrast to those cool battle suits the girls wore in the first movie.
You don't need Timmy's I.Q. to realize someone spilled paint all over Tecna's outfit.
This collection of clashing, garish awful outfits is only better for Musa. Her believix pantaloons are not hard to best...
No new characters were introduced. The villains were the Trix, who we were glad to see back (and computer generated), and the ancestral witches whose storyline we were glad to see wrap up. Despite this known cast we still felt as though we experienced travel and newness within the breadth of the wide Winx universe. This starts right at the beginning with a fun, narrated introductory 5 minutes. It was surprisingly “techy” for a magic based series.
Remember when teleporting only required Stella's cool Solarian staff and not a nuclear blast? Ah, those were the days...
The Winx girls are unperturbed! (Despite being bombarded by gamma rays...)
The movie also fell prey to the, “we know what little girls like and are going to give it to them whether it fits this movie or not” syndrome. The lead character Bloom is the primary victim of this. Sometimes portrayed as a 10-year-old girl living the fantasy life of a princess in a beautiful castle being given a pony. At other times dressing as a slightly provocative teen and lip locking with her boyfriend at times both appropriate and strange.
However this Picasso-esque virtual communication scene was visually pleasing.
We really do think the plot was too focus grouped and marketing oriented in the sense that it included every element in which a 10-year-old girl might be interested:
- horses
- flying horses
- unicorns
- flying unicorns
- boyfriends
- evening gowns
- princesses
- castles
- princes
- forced marriages
- arch enemies
- BFFs
- big sisters
- garish clothing
- and amusing high school antics
Uhh...
Thankfully there was little Kiko, and even less pixies.
If you are a fan of the franchise, most flaws are easy to overlook and this movie is definitely worth seeing. Chronologically it takes place before the second half of season four. Critically we think it holds together better and makes more sense than those mishmashed, somewhat misguided episodes.
Produce more like this Straffi and perhaps Winx will attract a new generation of fans.
What can we learn from this picture? Bloom's Earth mother was a hippie. (Oh, and Bloom may not have been the prettiest baby...)
Here she is from 
The Winx Club fairies travel to non-magical Earth in order to find its last fairy before her powers are stolen by the wizards of the black circle who have become powerful by that means and along the way the girls will display a bevy of new outfits -and some selfish behavior, start a cutesy business, battle the black circle and use their new powers to mind control people on Earth.
If you enjoyed Winx Club’s first three seasons, you owe it to yourself to find and see this movie. I went in looking forward to Secret of the Lost Kingdom (SotLK). One of the reasons was that the main story arc of the series, that is lead character Bloom finding her biological parents, had yet to be resolved. SotLK resolves that and delivers much more in the process.
