Barbie - Island Princess [DVD]

This movie may not yet be out on DVD here in the UK, but I've seen it and it is BRILLIANT!! I've seen all the Barbie movies and this one is offically my favourite.

'Barbie as the Island Princess' tells the story of Rosella, a girl shipwrecked on a beautiful tropical paradise island who can talk to animals. Rosella lives with her three animal friends Tika a loyal baby elephant, Azul a prim peacock and Sagi a wise red panda until one day, Prince Antonio discovers their island. Antonio and Rosella fall in love and Rosella decides to return with Antonio to his kingdom to try and find her family. But when arriving, Antonio discovers that his parents have arranged for him to marry Princess Luciana, whose mother Queen Ariana is plotting to overthrow the kingdom. Can Rosella stop Ariana's evil plot before it's too late?

I absolutely love the songs in this beautiful Barbie musical, I've been singing them to myself ever since I saw this movie. The animals are so adorable - Azul certainly is very funny as he thinks he's a Prince himself, Tika is so cute and looks up to Rosella as a sister, Sagi is very wise and is always there for Rosella when she needs help and Tallulah is an adorable monkey who helps Rosella prepare for the Ball. I certainly love the characters as well - Rosella is a beautiful young girl with an amazing gift, Antonio is a handsome young man who'll stop at nothing to thwart his father's plans for him to marry Luciana (also in terms of appearance, he's the best image of Ken we've ever had), Luciana is a beautiful young girl with a good heart who knows what to really marry for and Queen Ariana is one mean lady you don't want to get on the wrong side of! And of course, Antonio's three little sisters Rita, Gena and Sophia are very cute.

I absolutely love the plot of this movie - there's a lot of lovely scenes as well. The Royal Ball scene is really sweet. When I first saw this scene, I couldn't get over how beautiful Rosella looks in her beautiful ball gown. And I was very touched when watching her and Antonio dancing together - so beautiful! So if you're a Barbie movie fan, you'll like this movie - 'Barbie as the Island Princess' is now my offical favourite Barbie movie!

Wow - this is beautiful and my 2 year old loves it. I am subjected to watching it more often than I can admit and I can't tell you just how lovely it is for adults and children alike. All the songs are fabulous and my little girl who dislikes CBeebies simply adores getting to know the scenes inside out. I don't mind that she doesn't follow the overall story (she's just turned 2) as she gains so much from the little details she picks out each time.

It is a love story with no frightening bits and totally suited to all ages. I'm now searching for others that she may like as much but it will be hard to beat. I hope you and your family get as much enjoyment out of this as we have. Thank you to the makers!!!

This latest offering from Mattel in the series of "Barbie" animated films for little girls (and boys) is beautifully made, imaginative, and, if my daughter is anything to go by, can hold the attention of a little girl for hours. Several sections of it will also give considerable amusement to adults.

Before we first rented one of the Barbie videos for my daughter, I was expecting them to be trite, over-commercialised, over-sugary and over here. In general, however, I have been pleasantly surprised.

Yes, they do have a lot of commercial spin-offs and a high saccharine count, but the quality of that film and the other Barbie videos we have subsequently bought or rented, including "The Island Princess," was significantly higher than I had originally expected before I saw the first one. They have not just kept my children engrossed for hours - including my son as well as my daughter - but introduced them to some beautiful stories. Several of them also introduced my children to some great musical classics: others, of which "The Island Princess" is one, had instead some enjoyable original music. In both cases Mattel had hired first class international orchestras to provide the instrumental soundtrack.

On more than one occasion I have been listening to a CD of a classic such as Beethoven's pastoral symphony, or "The Queen of the Night's aria" from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute", and my daughter, who was then five years old, recognised and expressed appreciation of the music, and correctly remembered which Barbie film had used it. ("Magic of Pegasus" and "Mermaidia" respectively.)

Of those Barbie films where the music is original rather than taken from the classics, "The Island Princess" is one of the two best: the other, which has a sound track that I can particularly recommend, is "The Princess and the Pauper."

Barbie films with scores taken largely from the classics include

Barbie in Swan Lake (with music from the ballet of that name)
Barbie in the Nutcracker (ditto)
Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus (Beethoven)
Fairytopia II: Mermadia (Mozart)
Twelve Dancing Princesses (Mendelsohn)

The plot of "The Island Princess" begins with a little girl being shipwrecked on a desert island, following a great storm: the inference is that her ship sank and she was the only survivor. The girl is adopted by three animals living on the island: a raccoon, a peacock, and an elephant. At this stage of the story she cannot remember her name, but wreckage washed ashore with her suggests that the first two letters of her name may be 'R' and 'O' so she is referred to as "Ro" for most of the film. The girl learns the language of the animals and for many years lives happily with them, growing up on an island paradise. However, she always wonders where she came from and about the family she can no longer remembers.

Ten years later, when Ro has grown into a lovely young woman, a ship stops at the island to take on water, under the leadership of the handsome prince, Antonio. He is very taken with Ro and persuades her and her animal "family" to travel with him to his home country. His parents are concerned that this island girl may spoil their plans for Antonio. But there is a much more serious threat to their kingdom. A supposed ally is, unbeknown to the King and Queen, the heir to a noble family who they banished for treason twenty years ago. Behind a mask of friendship this individual nurses a nefarious plan to gain revenge.

Some of the funniest parts of the film relate to this plot for revenge, and the humour is obviously designed to provide some entertainment for adults who are watching with their offspring as well as for the primary target audience of children. I don't want to spoil the story by giving away too much of the plot (in either sense of the word), but at one or two points of the story I was not far off laughing out loud.

In terms of production values, the DVD runs very smoothly and is fairly easy to navigate around: "Island Princess" is also possibly the most visually beautiful of the Barbie films to date, which is quite a high standard.

Those people who enjoy criticising the way Mattel operate the Barbie franchise will not have much difficulty finding things in these films to sneer at. If you, or more importantly your kids, are allergic to an excess of twee sweetness, then these DVDs and the Barbie videos generally may not be for them.

All the female characters are all on the thin side of plausibility: I'm not worried that watching this is going to give my own daughter anorexia as she likes food too much and has a good sense of the difference between fantasy and reality. This story is quite clearly set in a fictional world where several of the main characters are animals and the heroine can talk to them. However, if you are worried that your children may be forming an unrealistic idea about how thin a healthy female body shape is, it is not quite impossible that this product may contribute to it.

One charge which is sometimes made against the Barbie films but which does not hold much water is the idea that they reinforce gender stereotypes. OK, the films do often end with the marriage of the hero and heroine - although they do not always suggest that marriage is the only thing a woman wants - one Barbie heroine made her suitor wait until she had established her own career, despite the fact that he is a handsome young King. Other kinds of love besides romantic love are usually as important to the characters in the films - for instance, love between parents and children, or platonic love between friends.

But none of the Barbie films has ever portrayed the heroine as a passive victim who sits around waiting to be rescued by the hero. Usually the hero and heroine both take an active part in defeating the evil characters, facing down great danger, and ensuring the victory of good, and the heroine invariably has the key role in doing so.

When a recent feminist press attack on the "Disney Princess" marketing brand said that it "made Barbie seem like a feminist icon by comparison" the remark was intended as ironic criticim of Disney, but IMHO it held more than a grain of truth.

To summarise, these films are beautifully made, and will hold the attention of most small children for long enough for the typical exhausted parent to clear the mess they have made in several rooms of the house or collapse for an hour's rest after doing so. And there are enough more sophisticated jokes thrown in that you won't be completely bored to death if you decide to watch "The Island Princess" with your offspring.