Barbie: Mariposa & the Fairy Princess

Yep, after 5 long years, Barbie: Mariposa and her Butterfly Fairy Friends got a sequel! Seriously, I thought it would be the last time we got into the Fairytopia series/spin-offs! Wouldn't kids that watched the first Mariposa film have grown out of the Barbie/Fairytopia movies by now? But nope! Let's just hope that Elina & Bibble don't annoy me if they actually appear (which thanfully, they don't)! Anyway, unlike the last one, Kelly Sheridan is the one to voice the Mariposa character unlike before where they got voice actress Chiara Zanni (AKA the first Barbie character to not be voiced by Kelly Sheridan or Diana Kaarina) Anyway, can Mariposa actually be able to fly to the top second time round in this movie, or is it as mediocre as the first Barbie Mariposa movie? Let's find out!

Story: Like A Mermaid Tale 2, this movie recaps the events of the first film, which is used creatively (and I really mean with a generic storybook opening) & is often used to explain the past events of the movie. Overall, the plot is a generic culture clash one due to a misunderstanding, which coincides with the friendship between Mariposa & Princess Catania. It's just so generic & predictable that it literally took me 5 minutes to guess the whole plot when watching the opening. Even Delgo did it better! It doesn't really help that the villain's plot is also generic & cliched, the plot of Mariposa needing to bring peace between the butterfly and crystal fairies has been told already like Pocahontas. Heck, they even use the annoying sidekicks to parallel the conflict like it said movie! It doesn't really help that the moral of the movie is in your face & blatantly obvious involving friendship! Overall, it's a cliched piece of drivel, even if the friendship between Mariposa & Catania is kind of nice.

 

 

Animation: Compared to the first film, the animation is a massive upgrade. The character designs are much more polished compared to before & there's much more detail in the hair, skin & magical effects. Heck, even the wings are more transparent even with the colour. Also, the clothing actually moves more naturally when the fairies are flying. However, this doesn't mean that it's good overall. The character animation itself is pretty stiff & is sometimes sped up, especially in the flying scenes & it seems they still haven't got over the habit of using the same model but changing the hair colour, eye colour, skin colour & outfit after so long. Also, the backgrounds are actually more creative as we get to see more than just the world where Mariposa lives & to their credit, the rendering with the textures & lighting is a thousand times better than it's predecessor. Even if the animation is a big improvement from the first film, it still has the flaws of a direct to DVD film.

Characters: First, there's Mariposa, an intelligent yet shy and clumsy butterfly fairy that has to bring peace to the butterfly fairies & the crystal fairies due to being ambassador. She's just as generic as before. Princess Catania is the generic pretty princess despite also being shy & likes to read like Mariposa. Her father, Prince Regallius is the prejudiced closed minded dad as Mariposa's clumisness gets in the way of him seeing what butterfly fairies are really like. Zee is the incredibly annoying animal sidekick trying to copy the Minions from Despicable Me, Prince Carlos is the generic love interest & his mother is the same generic loving  & wise queen. Sorry for saying generic a lot, cos every character in this is generic! I'm gonna have to get a thesaurus in a minute Anyway, Gwyllion is the typical villain that wants revenge over King Regallius, even if her design is pretty creative & her bat sidekick is pretty much a rip-off of Bartok from Don Bluth's Anastasia. What else is there to say? They're all one dimensional, annoying & most of all, generic.

Overall, this is just as bad as the first Barbie Mariposa movie. Although the animation is better, the plot & characters are all annoying & generic. I guess fans of the first Mariposa film would like this, as well as little girls that like butterflies & fairies, but there is nothing for anyone else.
Story: 2/10
Animation: 4/10
Characters: 2/10
Overall: 3/10