Barbie: The Pearl Princess

Finally, onto the last Barbie movie for now (well, I may review Barbie & The Secret Door once it comes out next month) & the most recent one in the third generation Barbie movies being released in February of this year, The Pearl Princess. And no, it's not a spin-off or sequel to the Mermaid Tale series as the main character is called Lumina (what the hell kind of name is that?) & Oceana doesn't appear once. Anyway, can this movie be as pretty as a pearl, or is it as insufferable as having to untangle a pearl necklace? Let's find out!

Story: In this one, Barbie stars as Lumina, a mermaid capable of magically controlling pearls for beauty purposes & is meant to keep it hidden from everyone because of her aunt, gets a job as a stylist near the castle & turns out to be a princess (which is unsubtly implied & blatantly obviously revealed the first 10 minutes of the movie) even though the villain wants to kill her parents & have his wimpy son be king instead. Isn't that like A Mermaid Tale? And Princess Charm School? And Tangled? And The Little Mermaid? This is the result! It is literally the plot of those of those Barbie movies & Disney movies put into one! This is pure laziness & it surprises me as the plots were slowly getting better, and I say 'better' very loosely. It doesn't really help that they try to add pop culture references like Star Wars & Lady Gaga which date the movie instantly & put in a ton of padding at the beginning as well as making 'big twists' & foreshadowing feel really anticlimatic! But the biggest issue I have next to the copying other movies & lack of originality is the very slow pacing. It honestly felt like an eternity to watch & there were barely any segways into different scenes & they felt like they were dragging on & on when it was unecessary. Overall, a cliched mess which we've seen many times before!

 

Animation: Yet again, the animation does look a bit more more polished, but is still subpar. I will say that they do a bit better in the world looking like it's underwater, even if it's just shoehorning some bubbles here & there & the scenes of the ocean are very nice to look at. And I'll also say that the magical effects have also had an upgrade as well as being colourful (and by that, I mean full of pink & purple) Also, the character animation is stiff again, & for some reason sped up to make it seem more fluid. And I'll admit, the texturing on the scales of each type of fish was a mild improvement compared to before as well as the seaweed & lighting on the sea & the backgrounds actually do look nice. Honestly, this is one of the few times where the animation is the highlight in a Barbie movie, even if it still doesn't look all that great.

 

Characters: In this one, Lumina is pretty much the cliched fun loving princess-y character that is able to change the colours of magical pearls & wishes to be independant despite being told not to but breaks the rules anyway never thinking about the consequences & gets a job as a stylist. Yeah, the parallels between her & Ariel from The Little Mermaid are unavoidable! Her best friend Kuda, a seahorse, is the annoying obligatory animal sidekick with nothing else on her, moving on! Her Aunt Scyilla is the overprotective guardian that hides the fact Lumina is a princess from her in order to protect her from the villain Caligo & has to make the posion for him to kill Lumina's parents. Caligo is the cliched villain that want his son the be king like the Fairy Godmother from Shrek 2 & to also kill the king and queen in the process. Fergis is his wimpy & clumsy son of wishes to be a botanist instead of king & falls in love with Cora. He annoyed the hell out of me as did Murray, an eel which reminded me of Kaa from The Jungle Book as well as Flotsam & Jetsom from The Little Mermaid. Spike is the friend Lumina makes on her trip to the castle that looks 'scary' but really is shy & wants to make friends that is forgotten until the last 20 minutes of the film...a little bit cliched huh? Cora is the obligatory other new friend that falls in love with Fergis & Prince Delphin is the obligatory love interest with no personality whatsoever & barely has any screen time. Overall, too many characters with little to no development or personality!

 

Overall, this is a pretty weak one with a story that has been told millions of times with nothing new & one dimensional & boring characters, but oddly enough some decent animation this time round. I'm not really sure who to recommend this to as the quality overall is not all that great & didn't really need to be made in the first place. With The Secret Door coming out, I wonder what route the Barbie movies will take as oddly enough, the third generation is actually getting better as the movies progress. Albeit, very very slowly!
Story: 2/10
Animation: 5/10
Characters: 2/10
Overall: 4/10