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Hello Cinephiles,
Today we’re talking about the 2015 film Barbie in Princess Power.
Story
They tried really hard to mush together a superhero plot and a fantasy plot. Both are derivative with little of interest beyond a forced moral of cooperation. There were some pretty major plot holes that made the whole movie not make sense.
Score: 0
Character
A princess, her cousin, and her personal inventors? an evil adviser to the king, overbearing parents, and adorable kids. Every character in this movie is a cliché. I’d also say that the Rube-Goldberg physics of the world are practically a character.
Mostly it’s a bunch of really whiny privileged people whining.
Score: 0
Dialogue
The best part of the movie was dialogue borrowed from superhero movies. There were some nice nods to Christopher Reeves and other movies.
Other than that, it was pretty clipped and shallow.
Score: 0.5
Visuals and Music
I’ve watched about six of the Barbie movies at this point and I understand they are supposed to be dolls and that the animation isn’t fantastic. I’m willing to forgive that mostly, but the physics in this are pretty bad, clothing doesn’t move, hair does odd things, and jewellery looks painted on. Worst was their faces, every female character looked like they’re faces were collapsing in on themselves. It was disconcertingly like the late stages of an eating disorder.
The music was a nice surprise; the pop track was catchy and not too bad. I also liked the score, it had a lot of influences from superhero movies and made the scenes significantly better than they should have.
Score: 0.5
Fun
The movie wasn’t a lot of fun. It was frustrating and made me want to scream at the characters.
That being said, the silly physics and pratfalls were entertaining. Especially to my youngest, who just loved Bruce the Frog.
Score: 0.5
Overall
One of the weaker Barbie movies. It tries too hard to be cute and not hard enough to fun. The character development is as hollow and vapid as the characters themselves. The music was good and there were some ridiculous moments that weren’t bad.
Final Score: 1.5 Stars out of 5
