Barbie: Princess Charm School

Thankfully, this Barbie movie wasn't released in cinemas like the last film & clearly Mattel knew what was clearly intended as a direct to DVD film should stay as a direct to DVD film, even if they made a big profit out of it the first (and hopefully last) time when they decided to bring one of their obvious cashgrabbers to the big screen! So does this movie show Barbie's charm can get her straight As, or is this as bad as getting detention? Let's find out!

Story: It's your typical rags to riches plot with Blair going to Princess Charm School, not fitting in, realizing her self worth, becoming popular and possibly the most contrived part of it all, finding out she's the rightful heir to the throne where her school is as her birth mother was Queen of Gardania! It's not bad, but others have done it better! I will say the idea is interesting & had potential, but it comes with many flaws & plot holes! The 'Charm school' to train princesses is treated much more like a finishing school! Seriously, if they wanted to make it a finishing school, then make it a finishing school! Not once do they ever bring up the political side of running a kingdom & would rather focus on grace & poise or learning to dance etc! In fact, the whole concept is pretty ridiculous considering being a princess is mostly derived from your birthright, not some fancy degree! And choosing a commoner for a scholarship via lottery is just stupid! It doesn't really help that they try to add in a romance between Blair & this other boy from the Prince Charming School which is rushed & forgotten until the very end! And the villain's plot, again makes no sense! Seriously, if she killed her sister in law (who may I remind you was a queen & her brother king) & wants to live her dream of being a princess through her daughter, shouldn't she already be a princess in the first place? I can see the concept of all of this, but it's really watred down with the generic plots & pretentiousness!

 

Animation: I will give it this, the animation is an improvement over the last installments. The character designs aren't as creepy (at least on the women anyway) & the texturing on the skin & hair is a small step up, even if it still looks plastic-y & underdefined. The character animation is also an improvement, but you can tell when they use motion capture & it sticks out like a sore thumb. The backgrounds of the charm school look pretty good like a finishing school but with a modern flair, but it's much more underdefined. If there is something that really has improved, it would be the texturing on the clothing, even if it looks like they've put the texturing over the model rather than trying to make it look & feel like what it's supposed to be, like silk & leather. And I'll give them credit that the designs of the costumes themselves actually look good! The animation is improving, I'll give them that, but it's really just baby steps.

 

Characters: Blair Willows/Princess Sophia is clearly supposed to be like Mia from The Princess Diaries being a fish out of water/underdog stereotype that is clumsy, but I'll give them credit that she's a huge improvement over other Barbie protagonists. Her adoptive mother is the generic loving mother who's sick & needs money for proper health care & her sister Emily is a huge princess fangirl that entered Blair into the lottery draw hundreds of times for the scholarship! Delancey is the stereotypical blonde bitch from every high school movie but then changes her mind once she realizes howcontrolling her mother is (who by the way is a terrible villain even though she killed her own sister in-law). Blair's friends Isla & Hadley, are the token brunette & Asian friends who love sports & music and are there to make Blair appear more perfect despite being clumsy, and her Prince Charming Prince Nicholas is just the generic love interest & also likes her for who she is! And the comedy relief fairy (because everything is better with pink fairies!) sidekicks are also annoying & useless! But then there's Portia...and she is freaking intolerable in this! All she is is a vapid airheaded side character to the villain is take things literally all in an annoying voice! She is easily the worst character in this movie & is a bad influence to girls everywhere! Although the protagonist is better than others I've seen in the Barbie movies, it's all dragged down 6 feet under with generic & annoying side characters!

 

Overall, while I can see a concept & the animation is better, this movie is a generic mess with a dull story & characters that nobody cares about. I'm not sure who I really can recommend this to, little girls may like the whole princess thing & the main character, but that's about it! There's nothing for the parents to like, even if it tries to be serious & having the villain actually murder the main character's mother!
Story: 3/10
Animation: 4/10
Characters: 2/10
Overall: 3/10

Barbie: A Fairy Secret

Oddly enough, this movie got a limited theatrical release back in 2011 & ended up making roughly $125 million worldwide against a budget of a mere $17.5 million! Yeah, honestly I'm pretty shocked people would actually pay (extortionate) money to see it in cinemas while much better children's films with much better quality haven't in the past. Heck, Tinker Bell & the Great Fairy Rescue only made $10 million & got a limited theatrical release the year before! Anyway, this movie is a sequel to A Fashion Fairy Tale as it does have some subtle bits of continuity mentioned & one character does return other than Barbie, Ken & Raquelle obviously. So can this film show that fairies and Barbie go well together & can actually work on the big screen, or does this feel as humiliating as a friend blurting out an embarrassing secret despite promising not to? Let's just get this over with...

Story: The main plot might sound a bit familiar once I give the recap! Barbie & Raquelle have to save Ken as he gets kidnapped into a fairy world & is forced to marry the fairy queen while the 2 protagonists that used to be enemies end up becoming friends during their journey. Isn't that plot like, oh I don't know THIS ANIMATED FILM?!

I'm not saying they flat out took their plot, as there are quite a few differences it's just clear that they were trying to cash in on the fairy craze for little girls thanks to the Tinker Bell franchise. It doesn't really help that the movie's pacing is really slow & mostly consists of montages of them around Gloss Angeles (I'm aware of my mistake in A Fashion Fairytale & Barbie lives in LA, sorry!) or Ken and Zane dueling like a pair of idiots & Graciella being lovesick all the time. The humour isn't funny as it mostly consists of a running gag of Graciela getting Ken's name wrong! Overall, there's just no substance to this movie & even if it's nice to say about friendship being important, a lot of other films did that to much better results!

 

Animation: Since the budget was very minscule compared to other animated films, it's most blatantly shown in the animation! Not only is it nowhere close to theatrical quality, but it wouldn't even be good by direct to DVD standards! The character designs, again are really creepy & now look lifeless with their dead looking eyes & really underdefined hair & skin! The character animation is very inconsistent as it either looks stiff most of the time, or they have to use motion capture in scenes like the duel. And similar to A Mermaid Tale, the flying is just stiff & the wings don't really look like they're on the characters & don't flap in time with the speed they're at. Also, the special effects are awful &. The backgrounds also look generic & underdefined, probably worse than the character designs & there is nothing which makes it look unique. I don't even get why they went theatrical with this because the animation in a whole is just lazy!

 

Characters: Barbie is the same as before except probably more ditzy, Ken is just her love interest & this time round a plot device in order for one to actually exist & Raquelle is just the stereotypical bitch & is jealous of Barbie until she is forced to work with her to get Ken back! OK, to be fair, she is probably the best character as we get to see that she's actually insecure and wanted to be Barbie's friend, but that doesn't make it any less relentlessly cliche! As for the fairies Carrie &, they're pretty much the same character except with different fashion powers & are there to make Barbie more beautiful & give exposition on the world of Gloss Angeles! Crystal is the (awful) villain who made Queen Graciella fall in love with Ken so she could be with Zane, the bigshot who duels Ken to get her affections back & has a hilariously (in a bad way) over the top Spanish accent! And if you wanna know, Graciella is just lovesick for Ken in the whole movie up to the end (big shocker(!)) What else is there to say? They're annoying, cliched & one dimensional!

 

I'm just going to put this briefly because I've said everything I want to say, this is a shallow, cliched piece of crap which has no substance whatsoever! I'm honestly astounded that it got released in cinemas & actually made money while much better movies for children aren't given anything in return for the actual effort put into them! This is a blantant cashgrabber & my only suggestion would be to avoid it at all costs!
Story: 2/10

Animation: 2/10

Characters: 2/10

Overall: 2/10

Jack and the Cuckoo-Clock Heart

This one is an intersting film. Based on the book of the The Boy With The Cuckoo Clock Heart, it was written  by Mathieu Malzieu, a member of the French band Dionysos (that have a cameo in the ghost train scene in this movie) and also happens to be the director of this film! Clearly this is a personal piece for him as not only did he direct his own work, but the plot was also used in some of his band's music videos in stop motion & he voices the main character in the original French version, along with his partner, French singer Olivia Ruiz voicing the love interest Miss Acacia. Also, this was distributed by Europa Films, the same company that distributed another French animated movie, A Monster In Paris back in 2012. I have seen it & I do enjoy it! Anyway, the English dub features virtually unknown actors like Orlando Seare, Jessie Buckley, Barbara Scaff, Harry Sadeghi and probably the most famous of them all, Samantha Barks (Eponine in the Les Miz film) as Miss Acacia. So can this movie show the craziest of ideas can work, or does it feel like as a ticking time bomb? Let's find out!

 

Story: Since it is made in France, the story is a bit of an acquired taste for a foreign audience. It revolves around Jack, a boy whose heart is a cuckoo clock as he nearly died after being born due to it being the coldest of days. He must follow 3 rules: never play with his clock's hands, must keep his temper under control & most importantly, never ever fall in love. Yeah, it's never explained why he has to follow theses rules, but considering the other stuff that happens in this, it seems plausible! Anyway, he of course, immediately falls in love with a young singer & after an accident involving another man who's in love with her, he has to leave his quirky family behind & decides to go to Andalucia where she performs at a circus. The rest of the movie mostly involves their love story as he tries to fight the setbacks of his heart. By the way, there are a few sexual connotations in particular during one scene where Jack lets Miss Acacia 'explore' with his heart & the song's lyrics really don't help! It is actually a very interesting & I love the originality of the story as it never really resorts to cliches besides the third act, but the problem I have is the lack of cohesion. It's mostly inconsistent with how it wants to tell the story whether it's show don't tell or the other way around, which is especially apparent in the latter as there are scenes which go nowhere or aren't really resolved by the end mostly because of the focus on the love story. If I do have to mention something, it's that the English dub is very quick! I know, it's to do with the lip synching compared to the French, but it is very distracting! And if you're expecting a Hollywood happy ending...well...be expected to be disappointedI do think the story is very good & I love the originality of it, but the execution & lack of cohesion is what makes it suffer. My rating will mostly be based on the originality & creativity of the story, but the cohesion is just nitpicking for me! It's still very charming to watch!

Animation: Even if the budget isn't on par with Pixar or Dreamworks, there's no denying that the animation is amazing! I had to research the book it was based on & the character designs really respect the original designs, which makes sense since the author was also the director. It's very stylized with a realistic look yet being very caricatured, heavily reminding me of the works to Laika (specifically Coraline) & Tim Burton. Heck, Joe looks like a character Burton would make & would be played by Johnny Depp if it were live action! The character animation isn't really the best as sometimes they would speed up some stiff animation but it can get good & it is creative on the circus freaks like the 2 headed woman or that weird guy with the big ears. Thje backgrounds are very very creative like the characer designs & I love the detail on the architecture like the circus or just the streets of Edinburgh. Another part I love is the use of a pop-up book for the sequences when Jack or Miss Acacia travel via train. If there is one thing I must mention about the animation, is that it can get pretty freaky. Now, I'm not saying it's bad, in fact it works well with the film, but it can get pretty frightening whether it's the editing or the imagery! Also, may I add that some of the circus freaks are possibly some the most disturbing things I've seen in a recent animated film? As the movie goes on, it gets more & more clear why this movie is in animation & has to tell the story mostly in a visual form, & it is gorgeous to watch!

 

 

Characters: When it comes to the characters, there's a pretty small list & let's jut say they're not the most developed ones I've seen. First, there's Jack, a meek boy who falls deeply in love with Miss Acacia & has been due to his abnormality. I liked his personality being sweet & rather naive due to his upbringing, as well as romantic, essentially grows from a boy to a man in the movie & learns about the consequences of his actions. Miss Acacia, while mostly being qualified as the love interest, still seems to be open minded with Jack & her backstory with being an immigrant & having to leave behind her parents while on a raid does make some of her hostility understandable & shows that she's actually more similar to Jack than we think. Joe, the villain, is mostly the typical mean guy who's also in love with Miss Acacia & tortures Jack throughout his school life because of his heart. He's probably the weakest as we don't even know what happens to him at the end, even with his pretty cool design. Georges Melies (you heard right!) is portrayed as a young adverture seeking man who has just invented the film around the time of the movie (I don't know if it's historically accurate) & helps Jack with his conquest with Miss Acacia, kind of like Lumiere from Beauty & the Beast. The other characters in Jack's life like Luna, Anna & Arthur aren't in the film for very long, but are still memorable for their quirky personalities. And then there's Madeleine, the midwife of Jack's mother who eventually becomes his adoptive mother after the latter realizes how much of a better mother she'd be & is the one responsible for creating his cuckoo clock heart, is probably the best character in the movie. She may be strict towards Jack as his adoptive mother, but she's doing it for his well-being & doesn't want him to get hurt or die. The characters may not be the most complex or developed ones I've seen, but the simplicity of them is what brings the movie it's charm!

 

Overall this is a charming film with a simple love story despite the execution, beautiful animation & a cast of quirky & loveable characters! This is a must-watch for people who love Laika's films or French films like Amelie & even A Monster in Paris! Also, I would probably recommend that kids should stay away from this, not because of the freaky imagery, but also because of some dark themes throughout. And if you want to know, I didn't do a separate songs section as it's not really a musical, but the soundtrack is really really good! Heck, the movie is worth watching for that alone!
Story: 7/10

Animation: 9/10

Characters: 8/10

Overall: 8/10

Barbie in a Fashion Fairy Tale

This direct to DVD animated movie would be the second one of the third generation Barbie movies & actually portrays Barbie as herself being a famous movie actress this time round, showing that all the second generation movies & predecessor A Mermaid Tale, are all sort of movies within movies despite Barbie mostly narrating them & seemingly having a normal life, but she's famous in this one &- yeah, it's all pretty confusing & the continuity is just all over the place! This would also be the first Barbie movie to have Diana Kaarina voice Barbie, replacing voice actress Kelly Sheridan. Anyway, can this movie show that Barbie can bring a bit (and by that I really mean A LOT) of pink & sparkles to the fashion of Paris & actually succeed, or is it as bad as a fashion faux pas during Paris Fashion Week? Let's find out!

Story: The main story, I won't lie, sounds a bit familiar! After Barbie gets fired from her latest movie The Princess & the Pea due to disliking the addition of rapping zombie peas (can't really blame her), everyone online accusing her of being a diva once the news comes out & her boyfriend Ken dumping her, she decides to go to Paris where her fashion designer aunt lives, only to find that her fashion house is in danger of closing down thanks to a rival fashion designer (the designated villain of the film) & needs to save it by putting on a fashion show! Yes, it's like the plot of Burlesque for children! The romance subplot with her & Ken is entirely useless besides a cliched misunderstanding because of some bitch also liking Ken & to make kids remember that Barbie has a boyfriend! Seriously, it'sjust brought up randomly as if we need to remember that this plot exists! As for the middle...nothing happens! It's just filled with padding, montages & the annoying talking dog & fairy side characters being unfunny & relaying on what's going on when we can see what's going on. And the world Barbie lives in is absoultely confusing! It's supposedly meant to be in our world as she's an actress with movies like A Mermaid Tale (refer to my last review) under her belt as well as real life technology & websites like Twitter being mentioned & going to Paris, but then we see that where she lives is called Gloss Angeles (because everything needs to be so pink & girly!) and she has magical fashion fairies in Paris! Way to show suspension of disbelief! It doesn't really help that the 'cool and hip' dialogue along with the modern references just make the movie overall dated! Overall, it's a load of materialistic (in a bad way), shallow, dated & cliched drivel!

I thought Ken was supposed to have brown hair...

Animation: Just as I thought the animation was improving, somehow, it got worse! The character designs are just creepy thanks to the big alien-like eyes & caricatured skinny bodies on the women! It It doesn't really help Ken's design just takes you into the uncanny valley & it's clear that they use the same models AGAIN & changing the hairstyles/colours, outfits, skin tones & make-up! Pretty lazy isn't it? The character animation is also pretty inconsistent from looking stiff in the walking cycles or a bit good or using motion capture. Like before the hair and skin texturing is a bit better, but still pretty bad. While the streets of Paris are actually pretty accurate (I've been to Paris a few times), the textures & rendering are pretty bad! The biggest 'highlight' would probably be the costume designs, even if they're all way too pink or some look generic. The overall feel is like an early 2000s PC game like The Sims 2 & even at that point, some of that looked better than this! And this was 10 years ago!

Characters:  In this film, Barbie is just an annoyingly perfect heroine who is bland, & honestly pretty ditzy, partly thanks to Diana Kaarina's intolerable & terrible performance! Her aunt Millicent is just the bland supportive and loving aunt type. Jacqueline, the villain, is just annoying & non threatening & pretty childish looking back at it! Ken is also just the 'pretty boy' type who is in love with Barbie, Sequin is her annoying dog sidekick who never shuts up, Grace & Teresa are her token brown haired & sassy black best friends who are also there to tell Barbie even more perfect. The Flairies are just annoying comedy reliefs & are just intolerable & throw sparkles everywhere! Then there's Alice, probably the best character in the movie! She's Aunt Millicent's assistant, but wants to be a fashion designer herself & is actually good at it! Even with that, she's still reduced to being the 'Barbie's new best friend' side character stereotype! At least the voice actors who are obviously American try with the French accents!

TOO MUCH PINK!!!

 

 Overall, this is one of the worst Barbie films I've sat through with a shallow & cliched plot which feels dated, bad animation & characters with little to no personality traits! I can only recommend avoiding this film completely! It just accentuates stereotypes to little girls and expects all of them to be fashion loving & talk about boys & love the colour pink! It feels like a huge cashgrabber for the dolls with no effort put in & giving nothing in return to it's intended audience! And do you know the worst thing about this for me? I'll have to endure more of Diana Kaarina's terrible voice acting for the rest of these movies!
Story: 2/10
Animation: 3/10
Characters: 3/10
Overall: 3/10

Barbie in A Mermaid Tale

Now that I'm done with the second generation Barbie movies, let's get into the third generation, which hasn't finished yet, so I'll be reviewing all of them up to The Pearl Princess, the most recent one that has been released! This generation is significantly different as these movies are all in modern settings and are more fashion orientated, rather than being based on fairy tale fantasies with princesses and being set in olden times, as well as the animation style being considerably different. And just so you know, this is actually the second time a Barbie character has been a mermaid after that awful Fairytopia sequel! Anyway, will this movie be able to show that Barbie can be as good as ripping some waves, or is as bad & sickly as accidentally drinking too much sea water? Let's find out!

Story: The main story overall, is a bit generic. It's about Merliah, a teenage surfer queen who is also half mermaid and has to save her mother from her evil aunt in her underwater kingdom despite wanting a normal life. Yeah, pretty obvious what's gonna happen even if it has something called character development (albeit, poorly done)!The rest is just a typical quest plot as she has to find the objects to save her mother, even if we get to see more of Oceana and the pacing is really off! As for the humour...it's filled with agonising fish and ocean puns like 'Bloomingtails', 'Fred Seagull', 'Deep Sea 3 Player' and I'm not joking, 'pufferazzi!' None of the them work, none of them are funny, this is as bad as Shark Tale, if not worse! This is even in the soundtrack, including Swimming on Sunshine! However, at times like the beginning it can be self aware about how crazy the premise is and Merliah being revealed to be half mermaid, but it's not. And I will say this time round it does do better in explaining the world of Oceana compared to something like Barbie Presents Thumbelina, but it's mostly told through Zuma. Other than that, the plot is still a bit messy & generic.

Animation: I'll give it this, the animation is slightly better than the second generation. The character designs are still the same in that they have the same model but with different hair colours/styles & eyes & clothes etc, but they're given a bit more variety this time round. As for the fish....eww! They just look creepy like in Shark Tale, as well as the fact that it looks like the characters are floating on air rather than swimming underwater! The backgrounds, specifically the kingdom of Oceana (yeah, great name! Just removing the I out of Oceania!) while still poorly rendered as well as the effects & textures in general (especially with water, which is very inconsistent throughout), do look a bit more creative despite the advertising everywhere. I will say the character animation is better and it's clear they've improved a bit of textures like the hair and skin (in particular with bone structure despite the unrealistically skinny bodies) The animation is a bit better, but it's still bad even by direct to video standards!

Characters: Merliah is pretty much an average teen who loves to surf, but is also revealed to be half mermaid princess and has to save her long lost mother and the people of Oceana from her evil aunt Eris, despite the fact she wants a normal life. Yeah, you can obviously predict she changes her mind, but at least it's a form of character development, even though she personally got on my nerves a bit with believing everything to be crazy despite the fact she, oh I don't know, TALKED TO A FREAKING TALKING DOLPHIN BEFOREHAND AND WAS BREATHING UNDERWATER! Eris is just a pathetic and non intimidating villain who somehow has power over everyone in Oceana despite being like a bratty egotistical child the whole time! Zuma is a pink dolphin who is nothing more than a comedy relief/animal sidekick character and just gives annoying exposition! Fallon, Hadley, Kayla & Xylie are all just there to be Merliah's friends & all have no personality whatsover besides being valley girls/surfer 'dudettes'! Callissa, Merliah's mother, would be an interesting character if it weren't for the fact that she barely appears and is nothing more than your nice queen/loving mother archetype. The same can apply for Break (probably the weirdest names I've ever heard for a guy!) Merliah's grandfather, as he's the one who raised Merliah & knew everything about her true heritage! The characters are still the same one dimensional selves only being classified by one personality trait, but they're not hateable & at least the protagonist is given some sort of development even if it's poorly done!

 

Overall, this is a bit better as a first attempt of the third generation formula, with a pretty bad story with better explanation, improved animation while still being pretty bad & underwritten & one dimensional characters! I'm not really sure who I can recommend this to, and if you want a good animated movie involving mermaids, then go & watch Disney's The Little Mermaid! It's better written, has likeable characters & gorgeous animation, even if it was released 25 years ago!
Story: 3/10
Animation: 4/10
Characters: 3/10
Overall: 3/10

Barbie Presents Thumbelina

This one I neglected to review in the second generation Barbie movies which turned out was released inbetween Barbie in A Christmas Carol and Barbie and the Three Musketeers. And I might as well announce while I'm here is that I shall be reviewing the most recent ones from 2010 onwards in the third generation reboot (yes, including the ones with Diane Kaarina awfully replacing Kelly Sheridan as Barbie before the latter came back due to 'high fan demand'), but I thought I should quickly do this one first to make the second generation one more complete. And considering my past experiences with reviewing Don Bluth's 1994 Thumbelina and the other second generation Barbie movies, I'm very worried! Oh, and did I forget to mention that this particular Thumbelina movie is set during modern times? So will this show Thumbelina can survive in modern times, or is it as bad as the 1994 Thumbelina film? Let's find out!

Story: Like virtually every other Barbie film, this one is told as a story by Barbie to a class of children when one girl feels down about being given the smallest plant to look after when everyone points it out. This leads to the story of Thumbelina, only vastly different and honestly, for the worst. And did I mention there's an environmental message? An in your face, painful, blatantly obvious environmental message?! Well, that's the main theme of the movie and moral! Speaking of morals, they do the exact same thing as every other movie about everyone being special in their own way...just like every single Barbie movie ever and they really insultingly talk it down to their audience! Well, at least there's no obligatory love story & it focuses on the friendship between Makena & the main character, even if it's handled very poorly & is really underdeveloped! And it doesn't really help that the whole movie feels very anticlimatic, it doesn't take time to explain the world of the Twillerbees, the pacing is really inconsistent & overall, it feels lifeless. It's just another cashgrabber for girls to get the dolls, and boy does it show in the lack of effort in the plot besides the most blatant environmental message in a kid's film I've ever seen since Ferngully!

Animation: Oddly enough, this has some of the worst animation I've ever seen in the Barbie movies, yet again, despite the fact technology in CGI will have vastly improved since 2001! The character designs...oh God! Not only are they still very plastic-y and ugly, but the Twillerbees like Thumbelina, are virtually anorexic with huge alien-like eyes! I was just so disgusted that the character designers thought it actually looked good! And again, they clearly use the same models for the Twillerbees except with different coloured features like skin, hair and outfits! Pretty lazy, don't you think? And the backgrounds are either really generic city or forests just with different coloured leaves on them clumped on together. And the rendering on almost everything is very very poor! It's just so bad, it looks more like a student film than a direct to DVD animated feature! And no, having things coloured pink, purple or green does not mean it looks good!

 

Characters: Thumbelina is the brave one who is curious, free spirited and doesn't follow the rules and always puts her friends in danger without thinking of consequences AKA designated protagonist, Makena is her human friend who's a spoilt brat and is very very annoying and insufferable, even when she changes her ways and it's implied it's because her parents don't have the time to talk to her. Thumbelina's friends are also annoying and never shut up. Myron, the 'villain' is nothing more than a bumbling fat bad tempered man who wants to destroy the forest because 'he hates flowers' and is not intimidating at all and is probably the worst Barbie villain I've seen so far! Violet & Ashlynn, Makena's 'friends' are just snobby, spoilt, arrogant bitches who I wanted to punch in the face! At least Makena did the only justifiable thing in the whole movie by kicking them out & realising Thumbelina was her true friend, even if it was painfully obvious from the start! Makena's parents are the kind of parents who spend too much time working, don't listen to their daughter and give her stuff to make up for it until they change at the end and realise the importance of the forest for the Twillabees with no development! This, next to the in your face story & horrid animation, is possibly the worst thing about the movie!

Overall, this is one of the worst Barbie movies I've had to sit through with a plot that just bashes morals in your head every 2 minutes with no pacing or suspense, hideous & unappealing animation & an entire cast of cliched one dimensional characters! Even if Don Bluth's Thumbelina was pretty weak with a lack of logic & boring & at times annoying characters, at least Bluth put some thought into it & the animation is frankly gorgeous! This on the other hand, is clearly an attempt to get money out of parents & to sell a load of dolls just like every Barbie film so far! And yep, I actually said that Don Bluth's Thumbelina is better than this crap!
Story: 3/10
Animation: 1/10
Characters: 2/10
Overall: 2/10

Tarzan 3D

Starring Twilight actor Kellan Lutz and former child actress Spencer Locke (Jenny from Monster House) as the main protagonists Tarzan and Jane, this new motion capture version of Tarzan made by Constantin Films (the same production company for films like The Neverending Story, the Fantastic Four films & Mortal Instruments: City of Bones) has slowly been released internationally since 2013 and finally came out a few months ago in the UK for a limited time, where it was a box office bomb! This one is gonna be interesting for me to review if you guys know about my dislike for motion capture like in Robert Zemeckis' movies! So will this movie be able to prove Tarzan can be good in 3 dimensions, or is it as bad as the other motion capture films I have seen? Well, I did do a review of the trailer for this about 6 months ago! Oh yeah....now I that remember...this is gonna suck isn't it? Well, let's find out!

Story: Like I said in my trailer review, this one is a modernized version of the Tarzan story and honestly, it is much worse than I thought it was going to be! Not only is this unecessary (well, the whole movie is anyway), but everything else is just almost hilariously awful! The pacing is just so off, it's unbelievable! Trust me, it takes literally 5 minutes for the scene where Tarzan's parents die and the actual plot doesn't actually get going until halfway through the film! And what do they do to make up for it? Filler of course! Including a scene with Tarzan creepily going into Jane's tent & using her bra as a slingshot or just swinging on vines around the jungle to show off the 'eye candy' it has to offer! The tonal shifts are also absolutely jarring as, although it's aimed at kids, it can get quite dark and violent including scenes of Kala's mate and child being killed and Jane being bitten by a snake and probably getting poisoned. And no, cutting before the moment of impact does not mean it's being sensitive for children! There are even sci-fi/fantasy elements which are ridiculous including a scene where Tarzan has to save Jane from a giant mutated worm, clearly taking influence from Avatar next to the blatant in your face and shoehorned environmental message, which is bizarre as they want to take it seriously by not having the animals talk. But probably the worst part would be the narration, which is either used for exposition which can either be confusing or out of nowhere, or to explain what's going on when we can clearly see what's going on as if children won't be interested. This is particularly noticeable with the ending as it doesn't even feel properly resolved with the narration trying to make it seem like one, with cliched dialogue throughout & some very laughable lines thanks to the serious delivery & how ludicrous the actual script is! Yeah, as you can tell, the plot clearly wasn't what was on the creative team's mind during the making of this!

Animation: Obviously, like I mentioned in my review of the trailer, the animation is just awful! Have you seen the characters? They all look much too realisitc and takes you into several trips into the uncanny valley, thanks to the cartoony eyes and the underdefined skin looking too plasticy. It doesn't really help how inconsistent it is as some like Tarzan and Clayton look realistic in terms of design while Barbie looking Jane & her father look way too caricatured, and it's really creepy to watch. The character animation on the humans and gorrillas is also way too realistic, similar to Robert Zemeckis' movies, but it does fare better on other non human characters like the dinosaurs in the prologue or the giant bird thing that attacks Jane. But even at that, it still looks stiff & unpolished! The backgrounds of the jungle are really vast, especially during the vine swinging scenes and the scenes where Tarzan & Jane look around the caves, but clearly the animators knew nothing about the geography of the African jungles including a volcano with snow around it and a forest more at home in something like the Tinker Bell movies during the montage of Tarzan & Jane 'falling in love' to Coldplay's Paradise! In fact, the animation, and the movie as a whole feels like one giant PS4 cutscene made into a movie, only with more horrid voice acting and some of the worst motion capture I've ever seen since Mars Needs Moms!

Characters: If you think that the story is convuluted, then take a look at some of the most one dimensional characters I've ever had to witness! Tarzan (or JJ Greystoke) is just bland and uninteresting, even with his backstory with his parents as we never delve into how much it affected him or how he gradually befriended his ape family. By the way, Kellan Lutz's voice acting is just awful, and although the few lines of dialogue he has are supposed to be primitive, his line delivery makes it too competent to make it believeable! Jane is just the vapid love interest who I think is meant to be sassy, but it really falls flat and is even more uninteresting than the title character. And Spencer Locke, who I haven't seen anything of since her child acting days, at least tries with her acting, but she seems to have a tin ear when it comes to the context of the scenes, which I really can't blame her. Clayton, the obvious bad guy is just the typical asshole who wants money and to find the same meteor which John Greystoke was looking for which lead to his & his wife's demise...and I am not joking, he reveals his 'evil plot' not 24 hours after he arrives in the jungle with Jane & threatens her father! Oh come on, at least Disney did it so that he got them to trust him before revealing his deception! Jane's father, who for some reason switches from an American to British accent from time to time, is just annoying & doesn't even care for his own safety or his wife and daughter as he has lived in the jungle for 15 years all for the sake of the meteor! The other characters like Clayton's henchmen, Derek & the apes don't really have much on them besides being comedy reliefs or are there just to annoy you. And another thing I want to add is that the voice acting overall is just awful! The delivery makes it seem if they had no context as to what's going on in the scenes, especially with Spencer Locke and at times the delivery can be hilariously bad, including Lutz's attempts at the infamous Tarzan yell!

 

 

It honestly is shocking how bad Tarzan 3D is, with a complicated & ludicrous plot no child would be interested in, some of the worst character designs and animation I've ever had to sit through and one dimensional characters with poor quality voice acting. My only recommendation would be to stay away from this & stick with Disney's Tarzan. It has much better writing, the characters are likeable and funny, the voice acting is actually emotive and the animation is gorgeous, even if it was made 15 years ago! Let's hope the upcoming 2016 Tarzan reboot is better than this and at least tries to pay tribute to the Edgar Rice Burroughs book rather than modernizing it to try to appeal to kids & making it feel less like a Tarzan movie!
Story: 2/10
Animation: 3/10
Characters: 1/10
Overall: 2/10