Barbie Fairytopia (2005) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This is a nice movie for little girls. My four year old absolutely loves it. Of course it has Barbie and fairies so it was an instant hit. As any mom who has to watch movies over and over again I appreciate quality in children's movies and look for movies my daughter will love and I will not go crazy watching reapeatedly. My daughter truly enjoys the movie. It was a let down for me.
The movie is 70 minutes long (compared to 78 min for Nutcracker, 83 min for Rapunzel, 83 min for Swan Lake, and 85 min for Princess and the Pauper) and seems to be meant as a set-up for a series of Fairytopia movies and to sell fairytopia dolls. (if you see the feature in called Meet New Friends, or something along those lines, it shows many of the products related to the line, which is one the most shameless promotions I've seen for the series. No inspirational true life stories of girls achieving their goals or anything of the sort in this one, unlike some of the previous movies which did include some nice extras).
The movie introduces a lot of characters that are not at all developed and has a very flimsy story. I guess that is why I am not giving it 5 stars. I've seen what Barbie movies can be, and this one was not the best. The previous four Barbie movies based on classic stories are wonderful. I can watch them with my daughter every time and do not get tired of them. They are extremely well developed for this kind of movie. They used well known voice talents that brought a certain credibility to the movies which I had not expected when I first saw them advertised. This one is not in the same level as the previous four. It is sort of like the difference between Disney's Aladdin and the two sequels. The sequels were not bad, but they just were not as well produced as the first one. While the first four Barbie movies were almost flawless within their category of little girl movies, and actually raised the bar in quality animation and storytelling within said category, Barbie Fairytopia is just one more movie for your child's collection. Not really one to stand out.
After all is taken into consideration, Barbie Fairytopia is a cute movie with a nice message. Little kids will more than likely want to see it again and again. Little girls will probably want to dress up as Barbie - Elina for Halloween this year and want Fairytopia birthday parties. It is deffinitely not a waste of money. It is just not as good as the previous Barbie movies.
I just hope that Barbie's next movie, Barbie and the Magic of Pegassus (scheduled for fall 2005 release), is more like the kind of movie we have come to expect from the franchise.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Barbie Fairytopia (2005)

Barbie stars as Elina in her first-ever Fairytopia movie. Come join Elina and discover a magical new land filled with fairies, flowers, and enchanting experiences! Just through the rainbow, in the world of Fairytopia, lives Elina, a beautiful flower fairy who longs to have wings! Her home is a large flower in the Magic Meadow where she lives with Bibble, a quirky but loveable puffball. One day Elina wakes to find that her flower home is sick, and that her fairy friends can’t fly! She summons the courage to help and embarks on a fantastic journey to find Azura, a fairy guardian she thinks can solve the problem. What Elina doesn’t know is that the evil Laverna has caused the flying sickness as part of her plan to take power from the Enchantress, ruler of Fairytopia! Elina’s journey, on the back of a giant and beautiful butterfly named Hue, takes her to strange and beautiful places. She meets new people who test her courage and teach her the value of true friendship. But can a young, wingless fairy save all of Fairytopia?
A message from the Barbie Fairytopia DVD distributor:
While the Barbie Fairytopia DVD is fully functional on virtually all of the 600 plus DVD player models in the marketplace, to date we have identified that there are five DVD players on which the DVD is sometimes prompting a request for a parental code–-rather than allowing the DVD to play.The five players identified to date are: RJTech 1200b, Daewoo model# 5900, Cinevision model# DVR 2000, AMW model# S99, GO Video VHS/DVD model# 1030.We deeply regret the inconvenience that this may cause owners of one these players.We have identified that the issue on these players is tied to one of the fun special features that was included on the DVD designed to further enhance the wonderful enjoyment that kids will have with the Barbie Fairytopia DVD.The interactive game has an element of programming complexity that is confusing these DVD players.We are attempting to resolve the issue for these players, but in the meantime:
If you own one of these players- you may be asked to enter a Parental Code Pass Code. If you are given this prompt–-and have never set up a Parental Code Pass Code--you may be able to resolve the issue by following the instructions below:
1. Refer to your DVD user manual to obtain default Parental Code pass code.
2. Enter pass code and hit select or enter.
3. If you see a black screen for longer than a few seconds, hit the menu button.
4. If the problem is still not solved, eject disc, unplug player, and try again.
If you do not own or play the DVD on one of the DVD players that we have identified, your DVD should play regularly.Once again--we regret any inconvenience to owners of one of the 5 players noted above.If you have any questions or comments--or have identified another player with this parental-code notification, please do not hesitate to contact us at customerservice@lgf.com.

Click here for more information about Barbie Fairytopia (2005)

Barbie Presents: Thumbelina Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)This movie is drastically different from the other Barbie movies. They are trying to do their good deed by making a movie with an environmental message. This appears to be a calculated move from a marketing standpoint, rather than genuine concern for the environment since the only effort Mattel has made is with the items associated with this movie (recylced packaging for the toys, etc.). Nothing makes blatant commercialism stand out like a sore thumb like trying to package it as anti-commercialism. We all know that the Barbie movies are commercials for their toys (like the TV cartoons we grew up with), but as parents we've tolerated it with the Barbie movies because they've so far done alright at putting good moral lessons into them and making them relatively entertaining. This movie is not on the same level as the previous movies in a few ways. The writing, particularly in the dialog department, is very weak and stilted. They have built everything around their obviously half-hearted attempt at "doing a good deed for the environment" and it shows in that every element involved in the "green theme" is poorly executed. The dialog in these parts is atrocious, cringe-worthy jargon. It sounds more like a cheap PSA than movie dialog. The premise is horribly flawed that they would be trying to build a factory so far out of the way that they have to attack a field of flowers that nobody ever goes to. That they transplant a section of the flowers from the field to Makena's room using an excavator (and apparently so quickly and cleanly that the twillerbees inside have no idea where they are or what has happened) is positively laughable. I've had more to explain to my daughters of how things wouldn't happen the way they depicted in this movie than any other Barbie movie, and we have all but the Diaries and Fairytopia ones.
The animation is not up to par on this movie either, and I suspect it is because they are trying to churn out more movies this year than any previous year. They seem to have caught on that the movies are very effective at selling toys, so they're trying to hit us with a non-stop barrage. What happens then is that they are trying to slap these things together in maybe a quarter of the amount of time they used to have. Thus now the lifelike characters move like hollow rubber tubes, and the main characters aren't even attempted to look lifelike. Oddly enough, they look like the Sweet Streets dolls from Fisher Price... I also noticed several times during the movie that the image will pixellate and become grainy, so the finish is seriously lacking. Also noteworthy is the small role Kelly Sheridan has been playing lately. She got to mostly sit out of Mariposa, Christmas Carol, and Thumbelina and only had a starring role in the Diamond Castle movie.
I guess I've been lucky about the brattiness of the girls in this movie, as my daughters have not tried to emulate them. In fact the only comment I've received so far is my oldest asking "Why doesn't she say anything other than 'Ch-ya'?" which has given me the opportunity to point out that she doesn't have anything valuable to add so she just says something stupid. I also point out at the end that her part was so insignificant that nobody is credited for her. Frankly I thought the part was hillarious as a representation of the stupid things snobby people will say when they can't just be silent, but that is beside the point since I'm old enough to not be influenced by cartoons.
All of this aside, I will say that the weird looking characters can grow on you. Usually I like the villain characters in the Barbie movies because they tend to ham things up and totally upstage the heroic characters (particularly Martin Short's Preminger- classic!), but in this one, I think Thumbelina's ditzy friend, Chrysella steals a lot of scenes. Also the construction workers (not counting the crazy foreman) provided a few good laughs, although they would have a hard time keeping a job with the way they spend most of their time eating lunch and smelling the flowers. A good crew would have had the job of blading the ground done before lunch on the first day. Poor little pixies would never have known what hit them... All in all, the depiction of construction workers was pretty bad showing them to be lazy and more than a little weak in the head, and the foreman was the primary villain. In that respect, the environmental message skews the story into the very turbulent waters of over-generalization. It reminded me of a book that was just banned from the schools for trying to generalize Loggers as evil polluting critter killers. They tried to soften it by making it only the foreman who is really trying to tear the place up, but by doing that they made doofuses out of the workers. Way to go guys. Some kids watching this may have parents who work in construction, or other relatives, and now they are going to have to explain to these kids that they don't go around trying to destroy pixie homes... Does it also need to be pointed out that there is plenty of good that can be said in favor of green practices and environmental causes without having to involve magic and make-believe situations (which only dillute the message)? Since there aren't any pixies in the homeless shelters, trying to save their habitat is kind of pointless, you think?
This movie is mildly amusing and my daughters enjoy it immensely, but I think it has the worst dumbed-down plot of all of them. The parts about understanding what true friendship is are good, and that goes back to what most of the Barbie movies are good at, self-esteem stories. They need to stick to those motifs if they're going to do rush jobs on these movies.
And if you think this one was bad, the next one features four Barbies riding horses in mini-skirts waving swords around. That ought to get all of us parents up in arms!

Click Here to see more reviews about: Barbie Presents: Thumbelina

BARBIE PRESENTS THUMBELINA - DVD Movie

Get 17% OFF

Click here for more information about Barbie Presents: Thumbelina

Barbie and the Three Musketeers Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Mattel's latest gender-reversed classic in the "Barbie" animated series begins on a farm in Gascony where Corinne, daughter of the famous D'Artagnan, is practicing her swordfighting moves. (Her idea of swordfighting seems to owe more to the "Zorro" films than anything you would actually expect to find in 17th century France, but never mind.)
Corinne's life's ambition is to follow in her father's footsteps by becoming a royal musketeer. When she turns 17 she goes to Paris to enlist, carrying as D'Artagnan had before her, a letter of introduction to Monsieur de Treville, who is still Captain of the King's musketeers. (With the silver hair which is the only sign of age in this kind of film.)
Unfortunately for Corinne, the 17th century French authorities are not ready for the idea of a lady musketeer (probably this reluctance is the most plausible part of the film.) So instead she has to accept a job as a maid at the palace.
Just as D'Artagnan fell foul of "the three musketeers" on his first day in Paris and agreed to fight duels with each of them, Corinne has unfortunate meetings with three other girls while attempting to rescue her pet cat from an unpleasant dog belonging to the film's villain, and then finds that they are her new work colleagues.
Despite this unfortunate start, Corinne becomes friends with her new colleagues and it turns out that all four share an ambition to be royal musketeers. So they begin to train in secret.
Meanwhile the handsome Prince Louis, heir to the throne, is about to be crowned King on reaching his majority. His cousin Phillipe, who has been ruling France as Regent while Louis was a child, is less than happy at handing over power. Phillipe's nefarious plans are about to run into a most unexpected obstacle ...
From my adult perspective this was quite the most ridiculous of all the Barbie films - the fact that the music to the climax of the film was the song "unbelievable" seemed only too appropriate. But this isn't aimed at adults, it's aimed at little girls and I have to report that my eight year old daughter loved it, as did her twin brother. And in fact some of the jokes in the film are quite funny: they had my wife as well as our children laughing out loud and raised a few smiles even from me.
It has all the stock Barbie ingredients - a relentlessly positive heroine, a wicked villain, good and bad talking animals, etc. Like all the Barbie films "Barbie and The Three Musketeers" is also beautifully made, charming, and, if my daughter is anything to go by, can hold the attention of a little girl for hours.
Before we first rented any of the Barbie videos for my daughter, I was expecting them to be trite, over-commercialised, and over-sugary. In general, however, I have been pleasantly surprised.
Yes, they do have a lot of commercial spin-offs and a high saccharine count, but the quality of that film and the other Barbie videos we have subsequently bought or rented, was significantly higher than I had originally expected before I saw the first one. They have kept my children engrossed for hours - including my son as well as my daughter - and also introduced them to some beautiful stories. Several of them also introduced my children to some great musical classics: others, of which this is one, had instead enjoyable original or modern music. In all cases Mattel had hired first class international orchestras to provide the instrumental soundtrack.
On more than one occasion I have been listening to a CD of a classic such as Beethoven's pastoral symphony (Beethoven: Symphony No.6), or "The Queen of the Night's aria" from Mozart's opera "Mozart: The Magic Flute", and my daughter, who was then five years old, recognised and expressed appreciation of the music, and correctly remembered which Barbie film had used it. ("Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus" and "Barbie Fairytopia: Mermaidia" respectively.)
The music for "Barbie and the three musketeers" is easy on the ear, though this is not one of those Barbie films - there are some - which you would buy for the music.
For reference, the Barbie films with beautiful musical scores taken largely from the classics include
"Barbie of Swan Lake" (with music from the ballet of that name)
"Barbie in The Nutcracker" (ditto)
"Barbie and the Magic Of Pegasus" (Beethoven)
"Fairytopia II: Mermaidia" (Mozart)
"Barbie in the 12 dancing princesses dvd" (Mendelsohn)
"Barbie in a Christmas Carol" (various traditional carols)
The two best with music which is original rather than taken from the classics, are "Barbie as The Island Princess" and "Barbie As The Princess and the Pauper" the music for which I can particularly recommend. In terms of production values, the DVD runs smoothly and is fairly easy to navigate around: it is as visually beautiful as any of the Barbie films to date, which is quite a high standard, and contains a few extras such as games.
Those people who enjoy criticising the way Mattel operate the Barbie franchise will not have much difficulty finding things in these films to sneer at. If you, or more importantly your kids, are allergic to an excess of twee sweetness, then these DVDs and the Barbie videos generally may not be for them.
One charge which is sometimes made against the Barbie films but which does not hold much water is the idea that they reinforce gender stereotypes, and that criticism does not appear at all applicable to this particular film. It's a gender reversed story, and the heroine and central character is far more interested in foiling plots against the King than in going on a date with him.
To summarise, these films are beautifully made, and will hold the attention of most small children for long enough for the typical exhausted parent to clear the mess they have made in several rooms of the house or collapse for an hour's rest after doing so. And there are enough more sophisticated jokes thrown in that you won't be completely bored to death if you decide to watch "Barbie and the Three Musketeers" with your offspring.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Barbie and the Three Musketeers

It’s “All for One and One for All" as Barbie™ and her friends co-star in Barbie™ and The Three Musketeers!Join Barbie™ as Corinne™, a young country girl headed to Paris to pursue her big dream – to become a female musketeer!Never could she imagine she would meet three other girls who secretly share the same dream! Using their special talents, the girls work together as a team to foil a plot and save the prince. Come along on an action-filled adventure that dares you to dream as never before.

Get 25% OFF

Click here for more information about Barbie and the Three Musketeers