Barbie in “The 12 Dancing Princesses”
(Mattel/Universal)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C Extras: D Main Program: C-
The
Barbie Computer Animated DVD titles continue with The 12 Dancing Princesses, casting her as the legendary Princess
Genevieve in a fantasy trip that runs about 80 minutes. Mattel has been trying to do a successful
series of CG Barbie titles for a while and though they have been marginally
successful, nothing has been breakaway and even diehard fans I have talked to
at general toy shows seem unimpressed.
I
previously reviewed The Barbie Diaries
and thought it was not so impressive, but I was curious just to see if the
animation and storylines got better. They did not. Though this is harmless and some young ladies
might enjoy this, it seems more like status quo or just plain stale. For the price of the disc, you could get one
of the actual doll as cheap and you would think Mattel would try to be more
innovative with the color and graphics.
With the
female doll market, Bratz has not been so hot either, but the model they should
consider is Hello Kitty. They had a
hand-drawn animated programs all over on DVD, but instead of going CG, they did
new shows in the Claymation style. Even
if they made Barbie in CG imitating Claymation, it would still be better than
the color-poor, computer memory poor production here. Being “feminine” and “sparkly” is just not
sufficient enough to carry this flat work.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image has conservative color and the computer
animation sometimes looks like bad rotoscoping, but is better than past Barbie
efforts and an improvement over the declining quality of the Bratz animated
releases on DVD, reviewed elsewhere on this site. The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is purposely child
friendly, with a light soundfield, but much softer, lower in volume and lighter
than Barbie Diaries. What was Mattel thinking?
The only
extras are a music video (lame) and some overly-simple game. That shows the passive attitude with which
this was handled. Even as a non-Barbie
fan who is clueless about the franchise, this is not good.
- Nicholas Sheffo
