Movie Review: The Barbie Diaries

Welp, it's come to this.  No longer are we playing in fairy tales, no more fantasy, no more classical music.  Barbie's in high school now.  Everything looks completely different, because this movie is from a completely different studio.  I've heavily considered skipping this video, but it got a good review from Darling Dolls on Youtube, so I'm going to give it a shot.

Wow, the graphics are so bad.  The good mocap is totally wasted on these models.

Oh, god, I'm 15 minutes in and it hurts!  It hurts so bad.  Early 2000's teenage drama without an undercurrent of fantasy or monsters?  I don't think I can do it.  I hated public school, and wanted to die there, and this movie is giving me trauma flashbacks.  I can't watch it.

Movie Review: Barbie Fairytopia Mermaidia

I know I did one of these yesterday, but I'm on my period and Barbie movies make me feel better.

This one is a direct sequel to the first Fairytopia movie made the year before, with a lot of the same cast. Bonus tho!  One of the side characters is voiced by Andrea Libman who also voices Pinkie Pie in My Little Pony, so there's that.  She sounded a lot like Pinkie Pie too!  But she's not a main character, so it's not that important.

This time Prince Nalu is in trouble.  Why is this Barbie's, I mean, Elina's problem?  Shouldn't Mermaidia have their own protective forces trying to rescue him?  But then it wouldn't be a Barbie movie.

The new character is Nori, she's a blue haired mermaid, and kind of a crab.  If she wasn't in a fighting mood over Nalu, I'd say this would be a cute femslash ship.

At least Nalu's doing a good job sending the evil henchmen on a wild goose chase, because it's taking Elina and Nori a while to get their shit together.

Why does Laverna still exist anyways?  I thought she exploded into confetti at the end of the first Fairytopia movie...

Maybe Dandelion is Elina's girlfriend instead...  Am I supposed to like Bibble?  Because I still don't like Bibble yet. Oh well, at least I've finally seen this movie. 

Movie Review: Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus

It's been a few weeks, but I'm back on my Barbie movie grind.  This one is The Magic of Pegasus.  Not based on any story I'm aware of, but they featured some musical bits from Beethoven to give it a classical feel.  No big name actors for the villain anymore.  No big name actors to speak of, all just regular voice actors.  Oh well.

It opens with some nice figure skating.  Looks like they mocapped a figure skater for this, cool cool.  The villain is some magic asshole named Wenlock with a magic wand.  Well, they got the whole thing rolling in the first 20 minutes.  The pegasus's name is Brietta.  If Annika is 16, then Brietta is 32.  And Wenlock is old... and chasing after teenagers, gross.

Wow, Ken, I mean Aiden gets to be sassy this time!  Lucky him.  Barbie, I mean Annika, gets to be quite sassy too.  Lots of sass in this movie.  Poor Brietta has to be a mount this whole time.  Oh, Aiden's a blacksmith, not a prince.  Neat.  

Apparently this movie had some 3D special effects, but I can't see them now, don't have a 3D TV.  

Oh yay!  More figure skating.   Oh, this time it's speed skating.  Oh man, that little polar bear is trouble.

Okay, that was a cute movie!  Lots of delicious karma and it ends with more figure skating.  I always forget the last 5 minutes of the movie are the credits.  WAIT!  A special surprise at the end of the film!  Delightful.  I won't spoil it.  Yeah, that was nice, and I needed nice today, so good.

Movie Review: Barbie Fairytopia

Barbie Fairytopia is the fifth Barbie movie, and the first one to have a completely original story.  It's not based on any particular folktale, ballet, or anything else, just generic fae folk fun.  There is an evil sorceress, but this is the first movie where they didn't pay for a celebrity to voice the villain.  Shame.  In fact, they really limited how many voice actors they paid, half of them doubled up on roles.

Elina is a disabled fairy, who has no wings, and gets picked on, but she's the only one immune to the everyone with wings sickness the evil sorceress makes. 

Her best friend/pet? is Bibble, a blue puffball that speaks babytalk jibberish.  Bibble has a fanbase, but I'm not sure why.

There's no singing, and no real love interest, though the mermaid prince is a little creepy, but it's fine.  He's not in the movie long.

In the end, evil sorceress turns to confetti, and the queen of the fairies gives Elina magical prosthetic wings.  I dunno what kind of message that gives to disabled kids, but whatever, it's a Barbie movie, and they wanted the doll to have wings, obviously.

Was the movie good?  It wasn't bad, and I was entertained for an hour and 10 minutes, and now I'm inspired to make fairy costumes for my Barbies.  So yeah. 

Movie Review: Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper

Princess and the Pauper, one of the most well-known Barbie movies.  A retelling of the classic novel the Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain, but with girls and singing, and cats and shit.  I've never read Mark Twain's book, so I have no idea how close the movie holds to the original.  Probably more of a loose inspiration.

This is the first movie with a brunette Barbie, who gets to be the pauper.  The pauper looks pretty good for someone struggling with debt.  She has a pretty ballgown, and nice makeup.  She doesn't look poor.

Martin Short is the celebrity voice actor for the villain, Mr. Preminger.  He's worth his weight in gold in this film.  The villain doesn't have magic powers in this movie, but he's got tons of character.  And henchmen.

I think possibly the best part is the cat that acts like a dog.  Erica's love song to the cat dog is cute too.  Wow, King Dominic's singing voice sucks ass.  Julian's is much better.  

Okies, this movie is hella long, but the matching wedding dresses are cute.  The bloopers with the credits really made it worth it to stay one extra minute. Ooh, there's a sing along with the DVD, but I don't have the words memorized after one viewing.  Okay!  Final thoughts, worth the hype it gets.  Possibly my favorite so far.

Movie Review: Barbie in Swan Lake (2003)

This movie is in dire need of a remaster.  The streamed version looked like an old jpeg, and the DVD was super pixelly.  It was difficult to keep my attention on the story.  And for some reason, half the dialogue was super quiet.

Unlike the Nutcracker, I don't know the original story of Swan Lake, so I have no idea how much of this movie is true to the original or made up to make Barbie look good.

The ballet dancing was mocap again, and that's always a plus.  the dance sequences were possibly the best parts.

The celebrity villain voice actor was Kelsey Grammer, and he's fine, but not my favorite.  He sounded too normal and not evil enough.  What I couldn't stand was Odile's voice.  That was too loud, and painful.  I guess her voice actor is famous too, but I still couldn't stand it.

The end was fine.  Another fairytale wedding with a guy who looks fine, I suppose.  I will say, Odette's dress is amazing, as it should be, and I mean better than the finale dresses from the first two movies.  I hope the next movie is easier to watch though.

Movie Review: Barbie as Rapunzel (2002)

The second Barbie movie is Barbie as Rapunzel.  They took many artistic liberties with the story, no one ever climbs up Rapunzel's hair except in a dream sequence.  There is some meta in that dream sequence though, because she dreams she's doll sized and Gothel waves her around like a doll!

The celebrity voice actress for this one is Anjelica Huston as Gothel.  She's amazing, of course. They really use all their budget on the villain, I swear.   

It was cute though!  Barbie/Rapunzel got a talking rabbit and a talking dragon with daddy issues and a prince.  She's gotten proposed to in both movies I think.  Happily ever afters every time.

Umm...  I dunno what else to say.  Barbie's dress is pretty? 

Movie Review: Barbie and the Nutcracker (2001)

I got stressed with Equestria Girls, and I got some new Barbies recently, so here we are, Barbie's first movie, Barbie and the Nutcracker.  It is not exactly the same as The Nutcracker.  They took some artistic liberties, added a rock monster, yeah.  They seem to have used motion capture for the dancing segments, but not for the entire movie.

One score, they managed to get Tim Curry for the Rat King, and Tim Curry is Tim Curry, so yeah.

Did I like it?  It was a slow start, but I at least watched it until the end, so there's that.  It was cute, and I'm bored, so it's fine.  I won't go buying this movie to have a hard copy or anything like that, but it's free on Youtube if you search, so yeah.  Will I watch this again around Christmas?  Maybe?  Aside from the mocapped dance scenes, the animation was pretty janky.  The music was all Nutcracker music, so it was fine.  

I'd pick it up from a bargain bin, you know?  It's bargain bin worthy.