Barbie and the Secret Door

A good movie. I purchased this from Amazon.com and was first in the e-queue but also was a little puzzled, as when I showed the movie off most people had already seen it. Apparently there are a whole load of websites where you can watch this movie for free on-line.

However the kids really did enjoy it and as soon as the movie finished they pressed play and watched it again, which they have not done since Tinkerbell a good sign of money well spent. The scenes were bright and colourful, the story engaging, a little more thrills and fun. The dopey mermaid was funny and the grandmother was kinda cool as well.

For a movie advertised as a musical, regretfully, the songs were weak. The kids hummed away on the old Barbie tunes, but not so here.

Although she does play the part of the reluctant hero, which is good, no explanation is given why she is so reluctant. What happened to the brave and inspiring Barbie of old who fought against all kinds of monsters, wizards, witches etc. "Fighting an evil princess, I don't think I can do that." She plays a cowardly role and wanders around far too much. Barbie was uninspiring.

There was such little characterisation built up, the entire cast seemed one dimensional and we could not make ourselves care about any of them. No matter how much trouble they got into we were so distant from the movie we could not have cared less. This was the movies biggest flaw zero empathy.

When the characters had their magic drained they should have fallen deathly ill, grey skin, feverish, then there could have been a sense of urgency to the plot, that these friends had to push their fears aside, band together and rescue their fellows, quickly, but there was no clock ticking away in the background to add anything so was the usual slow paced offering.

We watched Malucia steal powers, attack people, and we were all very disappointed when she was given such a trivial punishment at the end, there was a real sense of injustice.

Would be keen to see a love story next, something like beauty and the beast(-ish) maybe.

All in all a good movie, well worth a watch or rent.