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: 😠