If you can bear to be in the room whilst it's on, there are positives - the animation is remarkably good, particularly in the dance scenes and, of course, the music remains as one of the best ballet scores ever. Another plus is that she couldn't wait to see the real thing on stage and had a much better understanding of the plot and music than she might otherwise have had. Much as it sticks in the craw to recommend anything Barbie, if you have pink-flavoured offspring aged four to eight with any interest in ballet this is an investment that will give you hours of peace and will probably exceed your expectations in all respects.
Our Price: £3.27 (subject to change)
The best of Barbie
Review date: 2005-09-21 Rating: 8 out of 10
Let's get the perspective clear from the start: I grew up despising Barbie in all her guises - her only discernable use was as legitimate target practice for my action man. I resisted all things Barbie until my daughter was introduced to her via this exposition at a friend's house and Santa caved in on her fourth Christmas. Seen through the eyes of a parent, this film does terrible things to Tchaikovsky's masterpiece - cutsie animals, lavender unicorns and a changed ending but my daughter was captivated by this, the best of the series. By that magic ability that six-year-old girls possess that enables them to wrap fathers round their little fingers, she has since added most of the others, though this remains the favourite.
The storyline has been heavily tweaked, with new characters, name changes and an alternate ending. Yes, the music has been re-arranged too. If you don't compare it to Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, though, you'll warm to it. The ballet movements are apparently created by filming real ballerinas and then overlaying the computer-generated characters, so the dancing is just about as fluid as you would expect to see on stage. The quality of the animation is higher than average, so it's quite pleasant to watch from an aesthetic point of view.
The unicorn was a little over the top(!) and the scene where we are introduced to Odette and her sister didn't seem to sit properly with the rest of the film, but all in all I found most of the changes to the story to be interesting alternatives and enjoyed watching it with my children. Afterwards, we talked about various topics, from how the film was animated using computers, to how it compared with the traditional version of the story. We also had a decent rendition of Swan Lake to play in the car for the next few days so the girls could appreciate more than just the overture!