Barbie in Rock 'n 'Royals

The 30th Barbie movie in the franchise, this would be the second last movie in the third generation Barbie movies. In an interesting little fact, when the movie came out, Mattel collaborated with British pop group Little Mix for the Raise Your Voice campaign. This included a singing competition online where the winner picked out from the group would get to meet them. Hmm, I guess it would be appropriate to pick one of the most popular girl groups at the moment to help promote this movie even if it's to get more money out of clueless mums buying direct to DVD crap as babysitters for their Barbie loving daughters...So can Barbie rock her heart out with a bit of princess magic, or will this concert hit a sour note? Let's take a look!

Story: This time, this movie is about Princess Courtney and rockstar Erika Juno as they accidentally end up in each other's camps, Camp Royalty and Camp Pop. As they get to know everyone and feel more at home, the feuding owners of the camps plan a sing-off where the loser would have to close their camp to make the other miserable. I think it's safe to say that the story in this is let's say...recycled. And by that I mean that they literally took the stories of The Princess and the Pauper & The Princess and the Popstar except for the location changing! This begs the question why did they just make a sequel with Tori & Keria from the latter about them training in camp? But nope, they prefer to do the same plot and all the cliches that come with it, like the fish out of water new girl, the alpha bitch who doesn't like the newcomer interfering with traditions, the big singing competition, the risk of foreclosure story etcetera, etcertera, etcertera! It's like they took the plots of the aforementioned movies with Camp Rock, Burlesque, Pitch Perfect and just shoved them in a blender with a huge dollop of glitter and pink! On top of that, the structure feels really off. It just jumps to Courtney and Erika doing the exact same things with nothing original and neither of them even interact until the final act. At least the other two movies tried to give the girls a friendship, but this doesn't even attempt to give them one. There is one subplot that is legitimately interesting involving the owners of the camps, but the way it's executed is hopelessly cliched since one is a straight-up villain and they hardly bring it up other than throwaway lines and a small scene in the final act. On top of that, while the set-up of the different camps is admittedly interesting, the fact that the movie resorts to all the cliches that come with it makes it redundant and we don't really get to fully see the camps themselves. It just feels like a wasted opportunity and the messages I got out of it were 'conform into society's rules otherwise nobody will like you'. What a wonderful message for little girls everywhere! In fact, that sums up this entire movie. Instead of fully establishing the world it's set in and making an interesting story, they just decided to rehash the plots of their past movies, leaving this to be pretty boring and predictable.

Animation: Yet again, the animation for this movie is pretty creepy. Seriously though, what the hell did you expect at this point after 30 Barbie movies? The character designs look off with their caricatured features which leave them looking as plastic as the dolls and it's clear yet again whenever they're reusing models but changing the hair colour& style/skin tone/clothes. The worst aspect this time round though, has to be the character animation. Since there's a load of dance scenes, while the choreography itself is OK, the rendering is terrible. It feels really clunky and the motion capture makes it even more distracting. As for the backgrounds, they're actually pretty creative in terms of design. While the rendering isn't that great, both camps are interesting to look at in terms of architecture, like the giant piano as Camp Pop's main building, the giant castle combining classic and modern architecture, and the elaborate concert stage for the sing-off. However, that's only it with them other than the treehouses and with all the pinks, purples and blues, it can get boring really fast. The same can apply with the magic and effects, being a bit inconsistent from looking pretty nice to downright embarassing. I will say that at least the movie tries to give it some scope and it is interesting seeing the two completely different styles of camps blend together and it is admittedly pretty colourful. Although I can't say it's amazing even by direct to DVD standards, at least there's a few good things despite not making up for the obvious flaws.

Characters: When it comes to the characters, yet again, they're the bland stereotypes you'd associate them with. Princess Courtney is the wide eyed optimist and is so bland. Erika Juno is your typical 'cool' rock starlet who wants to bring something 'fresh and hip' to Camp Royalty. In fact, these two could easily be considered as the same character because they both share the same personalities, arcs and motivations. Nothing about either of them stands out other than their differing designs and what interests they have. The two bitches, Princess Olivia and Sloane are also pretty much the same character except for the former being a snooty upper class stereotype and the latter being a 'rebellious rock chick'. The side characters are also essentially the same as the token best friends with Rayna, Zia, Princess Genevieve and Princess Aubray filling the roles as the girls' roommates and show them the ropes of the camp. Prince Edmund and Marcus are thankfully not love interests for Erika & Courtney, but they're still bland with the latter spouting out 'cool' lines when praising Courtney. The judges in the show are all also pretty bland with Allegra James pretty much being a cliched rockstar, Prince Reginald as the upper class prince and Svetlana Petranova as the owner of the unseen Camp Arabesque who for some reason a villain with a running gag of nobody knowing who she is. Probably the most intolerable ones though are the two kids. Not only are they horribly acted, but all they do is spout 'cool' and 'hip' lines about Erika and takes selfies. The only characters who are given any sort of 'development' are Finn Oxford (the love child of Paul McCartney, Elton John & Mick Jagger) and Lady Anne (the main antagonist), the respective owners of Camp Pop & Camp Royalty. Constantly at loggerheads, they had a romance several years ago until they broke up and became enemies. Although it's executed in a really cliched way and Lady Anne is a pretty bad villain both in motives and execution, at least they have something called an arc. Although her assistant, Clive...not so much. All he did was irritate me with his whiny voice and pathetic ways of trying to get Lady Anne to like him without coming across as 'threatening'. Then again, what did you expect with these Barbie villains? Anyway, each character can easily be categorized as their stereotypes yet again, despite a couple actually having a tiny bit of depth to them.

Songs: Given the title, it's clear that the movie will have a lot of pop/rock songs. And for what they are they're...OK. They're not intolerable like the attempts at musical theatre style numbers in The Island Princess, but they still give the movie a dated feeling and are easily forgettable. Gotta Get to Camp was really irritating because of how obnoxious the autotuning and EDM are and the lyrics are so cliched and annoying. What If I Shine is a dull 'I Want' pop song for Courtney with really dull and banal lyrics. It doesn't really help that there's a 'sad' reprise during the all hope is lost section of the movie which is equally as unmemorable. When You're a Princess is an a capella song which Camp Royalty rehearses which is pretty obnoxious with them shoving in our faces what it's like to be a prim and proper princess. Actually, listening to this made me realize that this was trying to cash in on the Pitch Perfect franchise. And given that the Pitch Perfect 2 was released a few months before this movie, that probably isn't a coincidence. Find Yourself in the Song is the rock chick style number for Erika, which would actually be pretty good if it weren't for the lazy and boring lyrics. If I had to chose my favourite song in this though, this would be it. Unlock Your Dreams is pretty annoying with the awful autotuning trying to combine rock and a capella with really banal and generic lyrics. The Final Mashup is pretty much a combo of Find Yourself in the Song and Unlock Your Dreams Another massive problem I have with these songs is how they're organised. Most of them range from being in the beginning and the third act, leaving the middle to pretty much be bone dry. It doesn't really help that they're really repetitive as reprises or with altered lyrics with a bland bubblegum pop filled with autotuned voices and electric guitars. So despite one decent song, the rest are at best mediocre and at worst, infuriatingly annoying with how 'cool' they're trying to be.

Barbie in Rock 'n Royals has no point to it's existence other than being a cash-in to much better movies. With a rehashed plot, strange yet colourful animation, dull characters and dated pop songs, it's just a waste of time. I can see the ideas there, but it's clear from the start that they weren't thought through very well and they just resorted to tiresome cliches. If you want a Barbie movie with the two girls switching places formula with some decent musical numbers, then I say stick with The Princess and the Pauper. Sure, the story can be confusing, the animation's below average and the songs can make you cringe into a smile, but at least a bit of effort was put in to make it entertaining.
Story: 😠
Animation: 😠
Characters: 😕
Songs: 😠
Overall: 😠

Barbie in Princess Power

The first Barbie movie released in 2015, this was released around the time where the Barbie franchise was taking a shift, but not up to the point that it would enter the fourth generation movies which started last year. Shown for a limited time in cinemas, can Barbie live up to the likes of Wonder Woman and Black Widow, or do princesses and superheroes simply not mix? Let's take a look!

Story: Having many nods to other superhero franchises, this is about Princess Kara, who ends up gaining superpowers after being kissed on the cheek by a magical butterfly (yes, really). Under the alias Super Sparkle, Kara decides to use her powers both for the good of the kingdom and to actually do something instead of having tea and wearing dresses, gaining attention from the media and jealousy from her cousin Corinne, to become her rival. While that's going on, royal advisor Baron von Ravendale plans to take over the kingdom through creating a potion to gain his own powers, leading the rival cousins to band together to stop his tyranny. Rather than being a deconstruction of superhero movie tropes like the recent Marvel and DC movies, this uses the cliches without shame. Everything is so paint by numbers from Kara forgetting the reason behind why she wanted to use her powers in the first place, somebody revealing her identity due to jealousy, lots of science mumbo-jumbo to explain illogical situations and a giant battle against a hammy bad guy. Add in lots of pink, sparkles and selfies, and that's this movie in a nutshell! It's not terrible, but it was so predictable that it left me bored and the characters themselves are their bland stereotypes with nothing which makes them stand out.The same can be said about the grating message about it 'being better to work together than working alone' which is barely acknowledged until the final act and it feels really shoehorned in so it won't be too scary for the kiddies. On top of that, the biggest problem is the set-up itself. Given that Kara is a very prolific princess, it would have been obvious from the start to everyone who Super Sparkle (God, it sounds like the name of a My Little Pony character) really was. However, I will give credit for the movie actually trying to make a Barbie character do something of importance for her kingdom instead of the stereotypical princess stuff & the climax, while cliched, at least tried to give the movie a sense of danger and peril. And I will say that while tried to set up a relationship between Kara and diet Peter Parker Wes, at least they don't have a full blown romance due to Kara's priorities being more about saving the kingdom. I can see what the movie is trying to do, but for what it is, it's more on the mediocre side in terms of plot and set-up.

Animation: Since there was a shift in the franchise, the animation in this reflects that. And to be honest...it's worse than before. While the character designs have consistently been creepy, the shift brings this up to 11. I think it's mostly because of the skin being smoother, the more caricatured body shapes (up to the point that the women and kids look disgustingly anorexic akin to Barbie Presents Thumbelina) and the eyes are giant compared to their tiny heads on top of looking really sunken. The texturing has also had a downgrade, especially on the hair and fabric as instead of actually attempting to feel like what they're supposed to be, the colouring makes it look more like blocks of hair rather than individual strands. The same can be said about the effectsThe backgrounds also don't fare any better because the city of Windemere looks like your average New York-style city with nothing that makes it stand out. Even the castle looks really out of place compared to the modern pop art look thanks to the more old fashioned look. The character animation is a tad better thanks to the admittedly creative action scenes, but it can still look a bit clunky and off thanks to some uses of motion capture. I know the look is meant to be akin to a comic book filled with tons of pinks, purples and blues, but overall, the animation feels more like a PS2 cutscene. Yes, I feel that this is actually worse in quality compared to The Secret Door! And given how creepy that looked, that's saying a lot!

Characters: Like I mentioned before, the characters are really by the book in their roles. I do appreciate that Princess Kara actually wants to be different than a typical princess and actually contribute to things that actually matter in the kingdom, but when she gains her powers, she can come across as a bit selfish and her priorities can be questionnable (even if the movie acknowledges it). Her friends, twins Madison and Michaela, are 'cool' science geeks with the character trait of arguing about who did what to help Kara and her powers. Princess Corinne is the cliched bitch who's jealous of her cousin, but she can have a bit of depth for actually explaining her envy and her reasons for becoming Dark Sparkle. It's still cliched, but at least it's something. Baron von Ravendale is easily the worst character as the hammy over the top villain who wants to take over the kingdom and nothing else with his 'comedic' frog sidekick. They try to shoehorn his motives at the beginning, but it does nothing to make him 'complex' or 'interesting'. As mentioned before, Wes is the 'clumsy' Peter Parker rip-off who follows Super Sparkle everywhere and exposes her secret without considering the consequences and grated on my nerves. Well, at least he's not the love interest...Anyway, King Kristoff and Queen Karina are the generic overprotective parents who still treat Kara like a child and don't listen to her wishes even though it'd be very important for her to learn leadership and proper responsibilities when she eventually becomes queen! Wait, was that expecting maturity and dimension? Anyway, Kara's sisters, Zooey and Gabby are the cliched fun loving girls who are massive fangirls of Super Sparkle and Dark Sparkle despite not noticing that it's obviously their older sister and cousin. The only other characters in this are the animal sidekicks Parker and Newton and even then, they really don't contribute much to the plot or as the sidekick stereotypes. This is definitely a case of the characters being stereotypes of stereotypes, even if they're not completely hateable.

Barbie in Princess Power is a pretty weak movie with some of the worst animation in the franchise and a dull story and characters, but at least the intentions behind it are clear and they are good ones. This really just feels like a cash grab for children since the popularity of the superhero movies plaguing cinemas is pretty much unavoidable. It's not terrible and I guess girls would enjoy seeing Barbie play a more 'badass' character with some fight scenes thrown in, but this wasn't really my cup of tea. And given how strange it gets by the next generation, I'm starting to get a bit worried over the franchise...
Story: 😕
Animation: 😡
Characters: 😠
Overall: 😠

Barbie and the Secret Door

I am aware I've missed a few Barbie movies compared to when I did about 27 of them back in 2013 (Christ, it doesn't feel that long ago), so I'm gonna do my best to make up to it now. Since the last one I did was The Pearl Princess, I thought it be best to review the next movie on the list, Barbie and the Secret Door, advertised as 'the ultimate fairytale musical'. There isn't really anything I could find for this in terms of behind the scenes facts other than this is actually the very first Barbie movie to be directed by a woman. Bit strange that it took Mattel about 15 years to achieve this feat given the target demographic...So, should The Secret Door be a movie that deserves to be known by all little girls, or is it best for this to be kept a secret? Let's take a look!

Story: Centring on the shy bookworm Princess Alexa, she enters a magical world through the titular secret door after being given a book by her grandmother, where she's chosen to defeat the evil Princess Malucia...because! Anyway, they have to try and defeat the magic stealing brat and protect a 'Queen Unicorn' otherwise she'll have all the magic which will...umm...noticing a problem here? There are many things which are never explained or acknowledged in this movie and it just left me both confused and bored. Like, why is Alexa the one to defeat such a spoilt brat despite having no connection to the world of the secret door? Why would Malucia stealing all the magic have disastrous consequences? Why are the unicorns so important? Why is everyone afraid of a bratty ten year old when it seems it's not the first time she's tried to take over (SPOILER ALERT, yet I don't care)? Why does she think she'd be a good monarch despite having no concept of politics? This also leads to another problem: the inconsistency. The world of Zinnia itself feels so inconsistent with how the rules and limitations of magic work that it left me baffled over why the writers decided to add it in in the first place. It doesn't really help that the movie tries to compensate for the terrible writing with musical numbers, but they're all pointless filler which stop the movie cold instead of carrying it forward. I can see that it's trying to do some sort of The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe premise, but the fact that Alexa is trying to escape her 'hard' responsibilities as a princess (i.e dancing and drinking tea with princes) instead of actual problems makes it hard to feel for Alexa's plight. This is on top of any attempts at emotion or action really falling flat because of the poor execution, leaving me uninvested in the characters' relationships or the conflict. However, I can see a concept behind this premise. If it was in the right hands, it could have been a sweet little fantasy adventure which acknowledged some of the ridiculousness of it all. But unfortunately, what we're left with is such a bland fantasy movie that does absolutely nothing to make it new other than adding glitter and unicorns for 5 year olds who'll eat it up.

Animation: Again, despite the small improvements compared to the first generation movies, the animation still has many flaws. The character designs are still creepy with their dead eyes and plastic looking expressions on top of the obvious reuses of character models both in the main characters and the extras. It's arguably worse this time round because despite Malucia being a 10 year old girl, she clearly has the face of an adult woman, making you fall face first into the uncanny valley. This also applies to the character animation because while a few movements are a bit smoother, the rest can feel really clunky due to the lack of thought put into the weight or timing and the use of motion capture. Although I will give credit that some of the lighting and texturing has really improved in some areas like clothing, stone and grass, the backgrounds and effects don't make them worth watching. Zinnia feels like such an utterly generic fantasy world except smothered in rainbow kisses and unicorn stickers, leaving me nauseated with how overtly cutesy it is. This is on top of the creatures looking really generic and equally as creepy as the humans because of how over the top they act and move. This is on top of Alexa's world looking like a bland fairytale castle against a futuristic version of what looks like New York City, really making it feel jarring. It doesn't really help when the movie tries to incorporate 2D animation for Alexa's fantasy sequence because not only is that overtly cutsey and clunky, but the designs also look really out of place since it's never used again. In fact, the whole thing feels like a PS3 cutscene both in quality and design. That's the best way to describe the animation in all of this actually...

Characters: I think it's safe to say that the characters in this are all as bland as a rice cake. Princess Alexa is the cliched 'shy girl' who shuns her responsibilities as a princess in favour of her love for reading which is never acknowledged afterwards. All she is after that is the cliched 'chosen one' to defeat Malucia who barely does anything despite the attempt at giving her an arc of gaining confidence. Her friends, Romy and Nori are annoying with few character traits other than struggling with being human instead of being fairies or mermaids and pressuring Alexa to be 'the chosen one'. The villain, Princess Malucia, is easily the most annoying Barbie villain ever because not only is the obnoxious spoilt brat stereotype, but nothing about her makes her interesting, let alone threatening or 'scary'! She grated on my nerves so badly that I was in disbelief that all the fairies and mermaids were afraid of her. I can see they were trying to go for a Darla Dimple style villain, but the big difference between them is that her put-on cuteness compensated for her bat-shit crazy nature. And given her parents at the end revealing it's not the first time she attempted to take over Zinnia, it makes the movie feel like an utter waste of time! Her minions, the Sniffers, were also annoying in their attempts to be 'funny', while Grodlin is the pushover 'trog' who was meant to take care of her while her parents were away. The characters in the real world are no better as they're all either valley girls/ her grandmother who support Alexa despite her laziness, or really strict and 'proper' like her mother and Mr Primrose. The movie tries to give Alexa a love interest with Prince Kieran, but it's barely acknowledged other than in 2 scenes when they're clearly trying to have them be in a relationship.

Songs: Well, what do you know, every single song in this is pointless cliched filler. Although it's advertised as having seven songs and being a full blown musical, it's actually not. In reality, it's about four with the rest being reprises for no reason other than to make the 80 minute mark. What's Gonna Happen is utterly pointless as it does nothing to help the audience get to know Alexa other than making her come across as a selfish hermit for ignoring her responsibilities as a princess in favour of reading which she could do any other time. If I Had Magic has really repetitive lyrics and does nothing to explain why magic would solve Alexa's 'problems' other than for materialism. What makes this worse is that this song becomes the motif and it gets annoying really quickly. You're Here is a really obnoxious way of explaining the conflict in Zinnia with Malucia and pressuring Alexa to save everyone despite not explaining how or why she's the one to do it. I Want It All is an obnoxiously 'catchy' villain's song which doesn't explain Malucia's motivations other than being a spoilt brat. But the worst part about all of these songs besides their superfluous nature is that they're crappy bubblegum pop. Not only does this make them utterly forgettable immediately after you listen to them, but it also gives the movie a very dated feeling. To call this movie the 'ultimate fairytale musical' is an utter farce because the songs don't reflect this hyperbole whatsoever!

Barbie and the Secret Door is nothing more than an obvious cash-grab to sell dolls. The writing is lazy, the animation still looks creepy, the characters are annoying and bland and none of the songs are memorable or charming. I highly recommend avoiding this movie. There aren't many good messages for kids or adults other than 'magic will solve all your problems' and there are much better fantasy movies with good messages about gaining confidence in yourself, most namingly, The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. It's definitely not the worst Barbie movie (I'd probably give that distinction to Barbie Presents Thumbelina) as I can see the intentions behind this, but for what it is, it's just a waste of time you'll immediately forget after watching.
Story: 😠
Animation:😠
Characters:😡
Songs:😡
Overall:😠